


dreamed about you

by Fictropes



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Anxiety, Depression, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Humour, M/M, Mature Student Dan, Pining, Slow Burn, They are both their current ages!, Uni professor Phil, author Dan, momentary angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:02:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 30,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25519231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fictropes/pseuds/Fictropes
Summary: Firstly, Dan was 29. How was that a mature student?Secondly, his actual book was on the university fucking syllabus.(or the one in which Dan tries university again in a desperate attempt to prolong his procrastination, and his lecturer Phil is apparently something of a fan)
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 273
Kudos: 316





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> helllooooo. Idk why but I couldn't stop thinking about this goddamn plotline, and i had fun writing this chapter. will update once a week! i hope you enjoy :)

“And you’re sure about this, Daniel?” She asks, the obvious trepidation leaking through into her words. 

“Yes.” No hint of anything, just pure certainty from Dan.

  
  
“Fine, fine.” She mutters, sounding defeated as she pushes a contract over the glass surface of the table. “Just sign there for me.”

-

Mature student.

  
  
Dan frowns at the words - he isn't even three decades into his life and this acceptance letter is sounding more fitted to being read by his mum.

  
  
29 and a _mature student.  
_

He’d tried this particular rodeo before, had dove head first into a law degree that had been enough to make him run from higher education and never look back.

  
  
Until now - apparently.

  
  
He’d somehow - through the sheer luck of a twitter audience - become an actual author. He had four books under his belt, two of them making the bestsellers list. He’d self published the first, been picked up by a publisher for the other three. At first he’d considered this a godsend, but now they were breathing down his neck for a fifth book and none of the inspiration was there. Everything he was attempting to write sounded exactly like everything he’d written before. Different names, different places, same story.

  
  
Writers block was a cunt. 

He wanted to write something that would inspire, that would stick in people’s minds long after they’d finished the book. He has it all in his mind, beautiful words that just wouldn’t come once he actually attempts to put pen to paper - or fingers to keyboard.  


And that was the reason for his sudden interest in furthering his education. Here he was. A mature student embarking on an English language and literature degree.

  
  
His publishers aren't overly thrilled with the prospect, until Dan makes up some bullshit about how this would only improve his writing skills, how his next book would be something shiny and new - something never seen before. It was enough to persuade them, all they saw were pound signs.

He’d write as went,have a book completed by the end of his three years. He was a liar, though, his entire reasoning for this was purely a very, long draw out bout of procrastination.

  
  
They'd reluctantly agreed, even helping Dan with his application, giving him sparkling references that guaranteed an entry into the uni he’d so boldly dropped out of before. The personal statement had been easy enough, he’d introduced his books, spoken about how he wants to only improve and how this was the perfect institution to do so. Blah, blah, blah. Sucking up was easy.

The letter of acceptance hadn’t been a surprise, but his new title of maturity had been. He was quite sure no one in his life would describe him as mature, rather a sullen thing that could barely keep an expression of obvious displeasure of his face. He wondered if all the other students on the course, the supposedly young, non mature, type, would shun him. Leave him sat all alone on the left side of the lecture theatre, wondering what such an old man was doing there.

  
  
For fucks sake, he was 29. 

-  
 _  
Dear students,  
  
Phil Lester here! Your course tutor (and a starring lecturer) for the next three years! I hope you like novelty jumpers and bad puns.  
  
I hate to be one of those guys, but i’ve got to give you some assigned reading. Yes. I mean actual stuff to read before you even start your course. I promise it’s some fun stuff, you’ll thank me for introducing it to you later! I would know, I am an expert on all good books. I’ll also include the reading for the entire year so you can all fight each other in the library for a copy before you have to traipse of to Blackwells and, god-forbid, actually buy a copy (actually please don’t do that, I think even the suggestion of a student hunger games could get me fired).  
  
If you have any questions feel free to email me back! I’m always in a week before term, my office hours for then will remain pretty much loose, just drop me an email if you’re going to drop by so I can make sure i’m there - and not in Mcdonalds. Remember the first year is all about getting adjusted, i’m sure some of you would never have even Harvard referenced before, so don’t put too much pressure on yourselves.  
  
I’ll see you all soon,  
  
Phil.  
  
p.s I do enjoy a cupcake, just so you’re all aware.  
_  
-  
  
Dan snorts, wondering what sugar fuelled state this Phil Lester had been in whilst composing this email. If the p.s was anything to go by, he’d ingested an entire cake in the lead up to sitting down in front of his laptop.

  
  
He did want to at least get on the man’s good side, though, have something pleasant to write back to his publishers when they dropped in. He’d be a good student this time around, he knew a lot of this stuff already, knew how to apply himself when he felt like it - though feeling like it was the trouble.

  
  
He clicks the link, feeling immediately dizzy at the sheer length of the reading list. It's as he's skimming that he sees _it_.

His fucking name.

  
  
He was actually on a fucking university syllabus. 

\- 

He debates emailing back, because he did have a lot of questions. Why his book? Why his first book in particular, the rough thing that had only been edited by himself in a redbull and coffee fuelled frenzy.

  
  
_Hello, i’m Daniel Howell.  
  
Can I please be excused from this particular task? _

No.

_Hello!  
  
Daniel Howell here. Just to let you know. I don’t know if you already know, maybe they told you. If so why fucking include my book.  
  
Thanks. _

No. 

_Hey there,  
  
flattered but no m8. _

_Daniel Howell - yeah that one._

No. No. No. 

He already know he's just going to have to accept it, have a year of people trash talking his book in front of him. It had been well received by twitter, they’d be the ones who’d pushed him to publish, but by the literary world, well, not so much. That was why he’d been so shocked when someone had actually offered to represent him, apparently seeing something in work, something that just needed a bit of a polish and a lot less commas.

  
  
_Oh._

Fuck.

What if Phil had chosen his book in particular as an example of what not to do. He’d have to drop out. He’d have to leave the country.

  
  
His face wasn’t something people knew - maybe one selfie a year ended up on his instagram. The rest were shots of landscapes, book covers, album art, whatever else he felt would show him and his personality - his friends had described each and every single one of these photos as moody. His twitter was filled with tweets that made people worry, things his publisher has suggested he tone down.

  
  
He could potentially fly under the radar, introduce himself as Just Dan. 

Hi. I’m Just Dan.

Though he doubted that would be accepted on his essays, on formal exam papers. _Name: Just Dan._

  
  
There were other Daniel Howell’s in the world, he’d checked. Wanted to know if any other authors were writing under the same name - there weren’t -And this was the grounds on which his publishers rejected him writing under a fake name. And, god, wouldn’t that have come in handy now?

  
  
He was just going to have to use those loose office hours to introduce himself, make Phil aware of his presence on the course. Surely it had to offer some kind of unfair advantage, discussing a book you’d personally written. No one had ripped it apart as much as Dan had, scrutinised it until his eyes felt like they were bleeding. 

-

He hadn’t emailed in the end, just decides that if he turns up and Phil is out of office that it's meant to be.

There's a Tesco just down the road, and he stands for an embarrassingly long time in the bakery section. There are two cupcake options, red velvet and plain vanilla ones covered in rainbow frosting.

  
  
He goes with the gay ones, of course he does. If Phil has read his books it’d hardly come as a shock to him, Dan tended to go for the gay things in life often. Always.

  
  
He’d attempted to google Phil before hand, to see if his tweets weren’t private, ifall his awful thoughts on Dan’s books were lined up nicely for him to see. He hadn’t written any, he didn’t even seem to have an account. The only thing Dan could find was his official university page, sans photo. He was 33, which was quite frankly insane. Four years older than Dan and he was already - no, Dan wasn’t even going to think about it. 

The office was located right at the top of the building, an imposing looking thing with a door that read Professor Lester. Dan already knew the rules were lax at uni, you weren’t to call your Professors by their last names. On his first go around he’d learnt this the hard way, addressing his international law professor as ‘sir’ and going red in the face when everyone around him burst into laughter. It was a hard thing to grow out of, and uni wasn’t anywhere near as strict as every single teacher at school had made out.  


  
He knocks, waits, wishes, prays that Phil isn't in there. 

“Come in!”

  
  
Of course, Dan had never had a genie so why would one appear now?

  
  
The door was heavy, and in an effort to open it he practically fell through it, only thing stopping him from a broken nose is a hand on his arm. 

“Careful wouldn’t wa- are those cupcakes?” He sounds delighted, and then Dan makes the mistake of looking up. 

It was a lot, he was a lot. Phil was someone Dan would describe in long metaphors, in pretty colours and prettier words. But Phil wasn’t a character in a book, Phil was a man with impossible eyes and long fingers wrapped tightly around Dan’s upper arm. 

“Yeah, fuck. Sorry.” He felt the loss of Phil’s hand immediately, wonders if that genie could appear now and shoot Dan back a couple of minutes so he could try this all over again. 

“Not to say gimme, but gimme.” He's looking expectantly between Dan’s face, to the cupcakes in his hands. “I haven’t eaten all day, I might die.”

So Dan gives them to him, watches as the already delighted grin blossoms into something else entirely. It was as though someone had given Phil the secret to existence.

“Are these gay cupcakes? Gakes. Gapes. _Gapes_? That’s not even a- ” He frowns, shakes his head at himself in what appears to be something resembling absolute disappointment. “I promise i’m actually an English teacher and I do know words.”

  
  
“Alright.” Dan smiles, all dimples and red cheeks. “I think gay cupcakes will do.”

  
  
“Oh. Yes, I think you’re quite right.” Phil seems a little out of focus now, eyes off the cupcakes on Dan’s face, his shoulders, his entire body. “How can I help?” He gestures towards a chair, takes the other free on his side of the desk.

  
  
“I’m going to be in your class? I think. You’re my tutor, at least.” He has no idea if the list had been compiled at all by Phil, maybe he had no say and would have no idea who Dan was. “Right. I’m just gonna say it, i’m Daniel Howell.”

  
  
It was obvious - Phil knew who he was. His eyes grew about ten times in size, and he looks as though he's about to reach out and do something like _touch_ him, then he thought better of it and dropped his hand down in favour of opening up the _Gapes_.

“God. I have to say, this is a first. We’ve never taught anyone about their own book.” His mouth is twisted into something that resembled either a frown, or confusion. Like he didn’t quite know what to tell Dan, like maybe he was working out how to tell Dan his book was shit in a nice way. 

“Yeah. I thought i’d better mention it because I feel like i’d sort of be cheating?” But really it was because Dan’s ego couldn’t handle it if he had to listen to live critique, his third genie wish would be to wipe it of the syllabus completely and replace it with something nice like Oscar Wilde.

  
  
“Mhm.” Phil shrugs, much more interested in peeling the wrapper of the cupcake. He does glance up briefly, and Dan could’ve sworn his cheeks were pink. “Well. This won’t do, won’t do at all.”

  
Dan has no idea what's going on, he was currently watching a grown man tongue fuck a bunch of rainbow icing in a way that had him wriggling in his seat.

  
  
“We’re obviously going to have to take it off, which is a shame. It’s a wonderful book.” He sighs, as though it was really hurting him to do so. There was a flame of something in Dan’s chest - pride? “I had no idea - hm. You don’t really post a lot about yourself online, do you? You look different to what I had in mind, you look- doesn’t matter! Anyway, thanks for letting us know so early. It gives me time to shift a few bits about.”

  
  
He looks? What does he look like? Dan desperately wanted to ask a follow up question, because Dan knew how he felt about how Phil looked. He looked like everything Dan had been sure about when he’d came out. It was nice now, to be able to appreciate male beauty without feeling the burning shame that had often followed it before. Now he could just admire, now he could tilt his head and look at Phil from underneath his eyelashes, now he could feel some sense of satisfaction when Phil apparently short circuits and splutters out a sentence that makes no sense.

  
  
He hadn’t noticed it when he’d first come in, the corkboard on the wall to the left. It was filled with pictures, notes with scribbles and, oddly, Phil’s degree certificate. Most important of all was the pride flagged pinned up in the corner, and he should’ve guessed from the cupcake reaction. He feels himself relax a little more than before, being in the presence of someone who understood had always made Dan turn into a softer version of himself.

  
  
“You like it?” He asks, after what felt like an eternity. “It was sort of a mess, it was all just me. I don’t hate it, it’s what started everything off, y’know? But it’s odd to look back on, I think.”

“That’s why I like it, it’s raw. You can tell it’s just you, but in a good way. It’s just so-“ He trails off, nose scrunching it what looked to be genuine thought, like he really wanted Dan to know exactly how he felt about it. “It’s so messy, you’re right. Like a stream of consciousness that you couldn’t wait to get out, like if you didn’t write it right now you’d just burst from holding it all in. And that’s why I wanted the class to read it, so they could see how releasing all your emotions can create something beautiful, something moving. Something so real it makes your heart ache whilst you’re reading it, because you just know the author poured their soul into it.”

And how was Phil doing that? Just saying things, things like _that._ No hesitation behind the words, just spilling out of him as though he wasn’t embarrassed by having actual feelings, wasn’t embarrassed about people hearing them. 

“Oh.” And if anyone ever asked, Dan would never be able to describe how that _Oh_ had sounded, somewhere between a sob and startled shock. No one had ever quite spoken about his book like _that_ , like it had touched them, like they thought about it often. And that’s what Dan had wanted, right? For his book to matter to people, to make them feel. ‘Thankyou.” and that didn’t feel like enough, he felt like he should be shaking Phil’s hand and offering him more than just two cupcakes from tesco.

  
  
“No, thankyou. It really made an impact on how I view things, on how I view how other people view things. Sorry, that didn’t make much sense.” He was looking at Dan now in a way that made him sit up straighter, in a way that made him, for once, look back. “I think I always forget how different people see the world to me, or even how different their world is altogether, your book helped me understand that a lot more. Your others were beautifully written, too, of course, but the first one always just stuck in my head. Do you mind if I leave it on the list, as a recommendation? We won’t discuss it in class, i’d just like to give other people the chance to read it.”

“That’s fine, I just don’t think I could cope with a bunch of teenagers trying to find the hidden meaning in it whilst i’m sat, like, right there. My heart couldn’t take it, actually. I’d die from cringing about it whilst i’m trying to fall asleep.’’ He admits with a laugh, something too loud that bounced of the walls of Phil’s office. “You know.”

  
  
“How old are you, Dan? I’ll be honest I never really looked you up, part of me wanted you to remain a mystery - but here you are - though even sat there you are still a bit of a mystery.”

  
  
Dan didn’t get that, wasn’t he obvious? Sat right here in a black leather chair, Dan was being too obvious. He wore his emotions on his face, everyone told him so, surely Phil could see them? The wide eyes, the pink spot on his jaw.

  
  
“Twenty-nine. A mature student, so i’m told.” He smiles at that, his own inside joke. “My walking stick and knitting needles are just outside the door.” He laughs again, something softer this time that sat in the room rather than bouncing all around it.

  
  
Phil wasn’t laughing, though. He was leaning on his elbows, looking at Dan like he was something worth looking at. "Oh. Only four years younger than me, then." Is all he says, and all it takes for something like hope to settle down in Dan’s chest.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> firstly knitting is fun and i know this i just could think of 0 other things. also 0 people in this fic are 'mature' they're all just being baybees you're all in the prime of ur life now shutup


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DAN. if u say something about Phil's age one more time.. >:(. hope you enjoy this! I am aiming for once a week but like any day of the week, weirdly the more depressed i am the more i feel like i can write which is interesting but whatever. sadness = ..... this fic?

Dan thought about Phil a lot in the week leading up to classes actually beginning, a lot being an understatement. The way in which he’d spoken about Dan’s writing had flipped his entire way of thinking, and he’d been close to calling his publishers and telling them to fuck off. 

Best not to burn all his bridges based off one conversation, though.

  
  
That one conversation had lodged itself in Dan’s brain, made a nice little home there. He couldn’t work out yet if it was pathetic, if it was the desperate romantic in him. Phil had sounded like he’d meant every word, like Dan’s writing had made him _feel._ So what if he got stuck in a fantasy land for little while, it was natural to daydream. And when no one in life was very nice to you, it was easy to fixate on the few that were. He could have thoughts, fantasies, even if they were based off one single conversation that had made him feel more hopeful than he had in years. Phil never had to actually know, just a harmless crush. He was Dan’s type, after all. Maybe it’d even inspire him, maybe he’d be able to write if he was actually feeling what he was supposed to be writing about.  


  
Yeah, this was a good thing. Having a crush was nice, good thing. 

  
He re-read his own work, the original, trying to see what Phil had so adamantly claimed to have seen. It was hard, though, when you knew the headspace you'd been in whilst you were writing it, _why_ you’d written it. It wasn’t a place he ever wished to return to, and though he wasn’t doing amazingly now it was still an entirely different place to what he’d been in eight years ago - dragging himself back there hurt in an oddly wonderful way.

  
  
He flipped through the assigned pieces, too. He was glad he had enough money to rent out his own apartment for the year, he’d remembered trying to read during his first semester of law in an entire building filled with students. It was an impossible task, like trying to cook pasta without water - he’d done that, too, so he knew. 

Phil emailed again,a simple thing of how there'd been a mistake and some of the assigned reading was suggested. There was no reason of why, no mention of Dan, and he was thankful for it. He didn’t email back no matter how tempted he felt to do so, the last thing he wanted was to come across as desperate for validation.

  
  
In reality he wanted to ask for all of Phil’s thoughts. Wanted him to be the one to write the Essay on Dan’s book, just so he could read something that wasn’t base level criticism on how he’d used too many commas, on how it was amateur. No one had ever really focused on the book itself, the characters, the story, they’d all be too busy nitpicking. Reading Phil’s thoughts might actually make him want to attempt another book.

  
  
He’d always claimed to need motivation, to need the pressure of people wanting. But people on twitter wanted, everyday he woke up to tweets about his next book, if he even had an idea for one, could he share an excerpt, it went on and on and Dan still acted like he had no reason to write. He was a professional bullshitter, and it wasn’t hard to realise he’d been bullshitting even himself for years now. Motivation wasn’t what he needed, what he needed was an actual reason to want to get it out there, even if it was only for a very specific audience of one. Phil had mentioned how his first book had been the one for him, and Dan wanted to create something like that all over again.

  
  
He slammed his laptop shut, having had enough at looking at the blinking cursor. Now wasn’t the time to attempt anything, his story wasn’t fully formed yet, it was only just beginning.

  
-  
  
“Oh! Dan, hello.” The voice behind him was familiar already, warmed him from the inside out.

  
  
“Coffee.” Dan replies, because that was more than a good enough answer, an answer Phil would understand.

  
  
“Mhm, it’s definitely a morning.” Phil agrees, taking himself out of the queue just to stand beside Dan. Their arms were touching and Dan was focusing on every point of contact, on how if he dared flex his hand their fingers would touch. It was far, far too much for a Sunday morning. 

He hadn’t been touched in a long time, that was all it was. This was a sudden and brief infatuation that’d fade once he got laid.

  
  
“You ready for tomorrow?” And, oh, Dan hadn’t replied. Too busy focusing on the heat radiating off Phil’s body, it was making his brain all mushy.

  
  
“Sort of. I don’t know. Bit like my first day of school, apart from i’m older and taller. Much taller.” He rocks back on his heels, pretending to read the chalkboard menu behind the counter just so he doesn't have to look at Phil, he feared once he started that would be it for him. “And older. Fucking hell, i’m so much older than them all. I’m literally closer to your age.”

  
  
“Hey!” Phil whines, and, shit, Dan’s focus was snapped away from potential coffee orders and to Phil’s face. Dan couldn’t look away from the pout he was suddenly wearing. “I’m not old, don’t say that like i’m decrepit. Some juice in this old- i’m not actually going to finish that, I don’t think.”

  
  
“Probably for the best.” Dan tries to keep a straight face, to stay quiet, but Phil was too much for a Sunday morning so Dan thought he might as well be, too. “I don’t wanna know what juice is a euphemism for.”

  
  
“Shutup. I’m not listening. My brain is off and it’s empty.”

  
  
“Filled with beans.” Dan suggests.

  
  
“Exactly. It’s just me and my bean brain, we are refusing to rise to the bait of your words.”

And now they really were both being too much, stupid loud laughter filling the otherwise quiet of a coffee shop on an early Sunday morning. 

“Oh my god, stop it, beans for brains. Gonna get us chucked out. We’re supposed to be all mature, you’re supposed to be setting an example to your students. I am a student, remember.” It was Dan’s turn, the girl behind the counter clearing her throat because Dan hadn’t been able to look away from Phil once he’d started. He’d known that was going to happen, hadn’t he, had stupidly done it anyway.

  
  
He muttered an apology as he stepped up the counter, Phil falling straight into step with him - and once again right beside him. “What’re we having? My treat! For the cupcakes, they were some top-notch gapes.”

  
  
“No- no, it’s fine. That wasn’t like an exchange or-“ He was cut off mid-sentence, the girl looking between them both with obvious disinterest at this little moment they were having.

  
  
“Two caramel macchiatos, please.” Phil had apparently decided Dan was taking too long. “And a slice of the triple chocolate cake. We can share.”

  
  
“That is so much sugar, Phil.” Dan sighs, any protest he had dying on his tongue because Phil had already slammed his card down onto the contactless machine.  


“So? It tastes good and I have a dentist.” Phil was somehow struggling with a singular tray, Dan gently taking it away before all that sugar went to the floor.

  
  
“I- yeah. Alright. I actually have no other points. I hope you don't start vibrating once you’ve eaten all of this.” And they were going to sit together, weren’t they? Clearly. One tray. Sit in cups as opposed to the paper things that burnt his fingers. A plate. Couldn’t leave with a cake on a stolen plate.

  
  
They ended up sitting at a too small table in the corner, knees bumping beneath the wood. Must they be touching at all time, what crimes had Dan ever committed for this to be his punishment? 

“You make a lot of noise when you enjoy something, don’t you?” Phil comments, chin resting on his palm as he watches Dan devour the chocolate cake he’d claimed to be against. He looks amused, like Dan’s erotic moaning around a spoonful of buttercream was something to find endearing rather than embarrassing.

  
  
“I don’t know, Phil, do I?” He asks, and people had told him this before - but never in the same way Phil was currently doing.

  
  
“Yeah.”

  
  
“Yeah.”

  
  
“Yeah.”

  
  
“Yeah.”

“My beans are too tired for this right now, Daniel.”  


“I won, then.” Dan licks the fork off for good measure, pretending the sudden darkness in Phil’s eyes was something to do with the thought of chocolate.

  
  
Phil rubs at his temples, looking as though Dan was already causing him great suffering. “You are going to be trouble, aren’t you?” He asks, and he sounds like he means something else entirely.

  
  
“Never.” Dan would class this as flirting were they anyone else, but he had no idea where he stood right now. He knew he found Phil attractive, but had no idea of the rules. Could he act on it? Was Phil allowed to respond if Dan built up the courage to do so? He already knew he’d fall down a rabbit hole of university laws later on, would pretend it had nothing to do with the fact he wanted Phil to keep looking at him like he was something special.

  
  
“Can I ask you something?” Phil looks away for the first time since they’d sat down, stirring his coffee with such focus Dan fears the cup will simply explode beneath his gaze. 

“Sure. Not promising any answers, though.” Dan could already guess at what Phil was going to ask, what was someone like him doing back here?

  
  
“Why’re you here, Dan?”

  
  
Obvious.

  
  
“To get coffee.” Dan smiles, just so he could see the roll of Phil’s eyes, hear him groan, make him laugh. He was suddenly obsessed with getting the man to laugh, just to see how his eyes lit up, just to feel like he’d accomplished something. Dan didn’t often feel any particular way about another humans laugh, but there was something about the way that Phil’s tongue peeked out that made Dan’s heart do a little flip.

  
  
“Smart-arse. You know what I meant.”

  
  
“Cos I am.” Phil raises a delicate eyebrow, it makes Dan relent. “Cos I have an extreme case of writers block, but if my publishers ever contact you it’s because I want to learn some new techniques, or whatever. I fed them some bullshit about how i’d have a book done by the end of this degree, but we’ll see.”

  
  
“Interesting delaying tactic, you know being here costs you actual money.” Phil was teasing him, not berating him like most. “But at least it’s actually something helpful to you, i’d say that’s commendable. Whenever i’m blocked I usually just watch Buffy, it’s not in anyway productive.”

  
  
“You write?” Dan asks, dropping his spoon with a clatter. They both reach for it at the same time, fingers brushing and Dan blushed as though Phil had just dropped to his knees beneath the table and offered to give him head. “Sorry. Big hands, tiny spoon - _coming to a cinema near you_.”

  
  
“Yeah.” Phil has the good grace to ignore the current colour of Dan’s skin, even if he does glance at him for a little too long. “Sort of. It’s not like a book, or anything. I do skits, sketches, little things. I write sometimes for other people, too. It’s not full time, I just help out friends from time to time if they ever have trouble putting something together. I used to do youtube at uni, write stupid ideas for videos.”

  
  
“Fuck. They still up? I want to see you but ten years younger, might relate to you more.” And it was easy, to sit here and wind Phil up, laugh at the way his entire face seemed to screw up as he thought of a comeback.

  
  
“They are. Also, when you’re thirty i’m actually going to never shut up about it. I’m still going to be here next year, so you’d actually better be prepared. I’m going to come up with so many things to say to you, your brain won’t be able to handle it.” And Dan can't stop staring, and he was sure it was so obvious, written all over his face, _who are you?_

“I’m so scared. Might drop out before I get there.” 

‘’No! Don’t leave me with all the young people. I’m too attached to the idea of having you in my lectures already.” And Phil was still going with it, apparently, saying things that other people wouldn’t dare say out-loud. Dan wondered if he’d ever get used to it, if he’d ever go a conversation without Phil disarming him completely.

  
  
“Alright, I won’t leave you.” And Dan could do it sometimes, too.

  
  
-

  
  
“I should go. I have actual set up to do for tomorrow.” They’d been sat in the coffee shop for the better part of an hour now, ordering another coffee when the barista started to loudly complain about how there weren’t enough tables for actual drink having customers.

  
  
“Oh! Sorry. You should’ve said something, I can talk for England once I get started. I have a lot of opinions on many things, don’t know if you’ve noticed.” They’d been talking about everything and nothing, if anyone asked Dan to repeat a topic of conversation all he’d be able to tell them was how Phil wanted Dan to stay. He was a little bit fixated on that, honestly. The idea of Phil’s face lighting up when Dan walked into the lecture hall, puppy dog eyes begging him to sit in the front row. He would, too, sit right up front just so Phil would keep looking at him; He was back in his fantasy land.

He needed to get out more, fucking hell. Getting this attached in such a short amount of time to someone he couldn’t even have was a slow, lonely road to sadness.

  
  
“No, I enjoyed this. You’ll have to tell me more about your books someday, I was going to ask about them today, actually. Then I got distracted by your general you-ness.” Phil makes a vague hand wiggle, like that was supposed to describe exactly what he meant, like he hadn’t just said something that made Dan want to cry a little.

“I think i’ll take that a compliment, unless you and your beans were trying to insult me. In which case, your beans can go fuck.” Play it cool, that was all Dan needed to do. Phil was just a naturally sincere person, probably like this with everyone, his words didn’t mean anything deeper than what they were on surface level. Then sometimes Phil would look at him like they did mean something, sometimes Phil would knock their knees together beneath the table and Dan would silently ask, _do you feel something too?_

“No. Please don’t fuck my beans.”

  
  
Dan cackles, that is the only word for it. Undignified and loud, but most importantly happy.He makes Phil jump, make the entire coffee shop jump. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed so hard, couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt like he wasn’t being secretly judged for every single word, every noise, that came out of his mouth. When he finally stopped Phil looked proud he’d been able to incite such a reaction, it was a look of _yeah I feel something._

But feeling something didn’t really mean a thing when you couldn’t act on those feelings, when there was invisible barrier that neither of them had the guts to cross.

  
  
“You’re an idiot, and i’m definitely allowed to say that cos i’m technically paying you to teach me.”

  
Something about that sentence seemed to knock Phil back down to earth, like he suddenly remembered that Dan was a student and not a friend, not a potential something. His expression dimmed and Dan found himself willing to do anything to get the light back, and Phil had called _him_ trouble earlier. 

“Sorry, Dan. I really should be going.” It sounds forced, like each word was a struggle to get out because he didn’t actually want to be saying them. And, oh, how different it could’ve been if Dan had met Phil here without knowing him, maybe Phil would’ve introduced himself as a fan of Dan’s books and maybe they would’ve been doing more than just bumping knees underneath a too small table.

  
  
“Yeah. Alright. Thanks for the coffee, or,should I say thanks for the bowl of sugar. Give me the number for you dentist or i’ll never forgive you for the toothache i’m definitely going to get later on.”

They stood on the pavement outside for too long, blocking up the foot traffic with their reluctance to leave.

  
  
_Please stay._

_  
  
I can’t._

_  
  
_“I’ll see you tomorrow, then? Hope you’ve got your alarm set, remember i’m that nine am class that you’ll resent in about a month.” Phil was gnawing on his bottom lip, staring off into the distance like he’d find an answer out there to what to do about Daniel Howell.

“I don’t think I will.” And Dan could be sincere, too. Could try to move this along to a place they’d never actually end up. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  
  
Still they didn’t move.

  
  
“Tomorrow.” Phil repeats, like if he said it enough it’d actually be tomorrow and they’d never have had to say goodbye.

  
  
“Mhm.” And Dan was the one to leave, couldn’t cope with Phil’s face anymore. Was it actually possible to fall for someone this quickly? To feel a physical ache in your chest when you had to leave them stood alone. He could feel Phil’s eyes on him the entire way down the street, it took everything he had to not turn back around and ask - _you feel it, don't you?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> despite the absolute feeligns in this chapter, the tag of slow burn still absolutely stands. this is just the grand set up for the absolute pining session that it about to begin. If you are enjoyign this please let me know, i ,like Dan, crave the validation. ALSO stil never used a beta in my life cos i'm too shy but if you spot any glaring errors in this chapter please please let me know. i've gone over it myself but it all just looks the same after a while.
> 
> thankyou for reading!see you again sometime next week. teh day...a mystery. just one of them. also if u enjoyed please consider reblogging so i can get the validation from even more people.... https://fictropes.tumblr.com/post/625021385094381568/i-like-cupcakes-especially-the-gay-variety


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! I know this is defo quicker than a week, but i think i could maybe aim for two a week right now with my brains current determination. I am really having fun writing this and that's probably why i'm getting it out way quicker than i have anything ever. So for now the updates will be twice a week (but they may fall back to one if my brain changes it mind) follow me on 
> 
> fictropes.tumblr.com for updates on this fic and it's update schedule! (and 4 a photo of the rainbow cupcakes that started this entire thing lmao)
> 
> in this chap the oc tag comes into play! there are only 2 and they won't be super heavily involved, but i wanted to create something that offered an outsider perspective of how Dan and Phil's relationship is going along, or even just on dan and phil as people! greg is a true chaotic WILD CARD but with moments of absolute clarity. And chris she is just very cool and we are all jealous. 
> 
> ALSO. I realised reading back on the first couple of chaps (always easier to spot mistakes if I reread a few days later) that i am very very bad for swapping tenses in like the same para, sometimes even the same sentence. I just get a bit ahead of myself and am trying to fix it! again if u see any glaring errors let me know as I have no beta cos i am too baby to ask 4 help.

There’s an entire pdf file on student teacher relationships, Dan reads it once, twice, three times.

  
  
It’s frowned upon, that much is obvious. Something that’s strictly not advised, but if it happens the teachers can’t be fired if they report it.

  
  
A sexual relationship between a teacher and a student is allowed, technically. Technically.

  
  
Though the context of the relationship changes entirely as you read on, it’s stated the teacher must report the relationship and this leads to the student being pulled out of any class they teach. The rule makes Dan feel a bit queasy, in his and Phil’s case they're both grown adults, both on an even field with only four years separating them. This rule, though, allows for a professor in their thirties and beyond to date eighteen year olds and get away with it. He hates it, actually.

  
  
Technically. He could see Phil, though they wouldn’t be teacher and student, they’d just be two people who happen to be in the same place at the same time. 

He doesn’t see Phil going for it, honestly. Ages aside it would be still be a moral thing, starting a relationship with someone you have a lot of control over, power over. Plus Phil had seemed excited to find out Dan was, well, Dan. Had seemed beyond willing to teach him, to help him through the hair pulling, crying at three am trial that was writing a fully formed publishable book. He doesn’t know if he’ll be willing to lose that for the prospect of romance, Dan doesn’t know if he’d read into the entire thing and Phil was more enamoured as a fan that he was as anything else. 

It didn’t matter either way, Dan was too much of a coward to go for it and Phil was too good of a person to try. 

-

As it turns out Dan is not the only one on his course classed as mature. There’s a Greg - and he’s something else. He is wearing what Dan could only describe as _Bumblebee Chic,_ who knew yellow jeans were even available in this day and age. He’s closer to the word mature than Dan thinks he is, looking to be at least early fifties (even with the jeans).

  
  
He’s heading towards Dan with something of a very determined expression on his face, like he’s in a race for the seat even though everyone else had gravitated towards the back. He’s a little on the short and stocky side, but he has a kind face and Dan would probably stand out less if he wasn’t entirely alone.

“You’re older, aren’t you? Not so baby faced.” He plonks himself down next to Dan, offers a handshake that very nearly breaks all of the bones in his fingers.

  
  
And that is the start of it all, the great Dan and Greg friendship.

  
Dan has no idea either.

  
He’s eccentric, he has an entire set of gel pens that he is very rigorously using to take notes. He almost seems to be writing every single word Phil is saying, even the introduction of who he is. It’s sort of fascinating, and Dan would be paying rapt attention to Greg if it weren’t for the man stood at the front of the room. He always seems to take over, there could be a lion in a tutu doing the cancan in the corner and all of his focus would still remain on Phil. 

He’s chaotic, a teaching style that he’s sure no one in the history of ever has adopted before. He has big flailing hands, brings out props to demonstrate his points, he lights up when he notices Dan for the first time. He still doesn’t say anything, though, doesn’t single him out for who he is, and Dan wants to mouth a small thank you - but he’s sure Phil already knows. 

“At least try not to stare.”  


Greg pegs on halfway into a Phil Lester lecture than Dan has a little bit of a thing for him. 

“He’s teaching us, i’m trying to listen.”

  
  
“Ok, tell me one thing he’s said.”

  
  
“I- shutup.”

-

Dan hangs around after it’s all over, because of course he does. He may have stared, but Phil had often stared back. Greg had helpfully elbowed him in the side every time Phil looked over, like Dan wasn’t already hyper aware of it.

  
  
“Hey, you.” Phil doesn’t even glance up, seemingly just knows that it’s Dan stood in front of him. When he looks up and confirms his theory he smiles like he’s glad Dan is still in the room, like he wanted him to make the decision to linger long after everyone else had left. 

“So, that’s what you’re like. Didn’t realise you were so down with the kids.” And he had been, as chaotic as it all was,he’d been funny and loud and everyone had actually paid attention - maybe not as much attention as Dan had, but. “Now i’ve got to go to another lecture and hope they’re quieter than you, got about five headaches.”

  
  
“Couldn’t keep your eyes off of me, I see, nominate me for Professor of the year already.” He laughs, and there’s that tongue thing again. 

  
“Who are you again? Professor.. Voldemort? I don’t know. You have the pale vibes.”

  
  
Phil rolls his eyes, big and exaggerated and the entire thing looks almost painful. Maybe if this was any other timeline, they’d be tripping over themselves to be the first to ask if the other would like to go and get a coffee. 

This is still the teacher student road, something that’s already begun and even with the official university rules in place it’d be hard to break out of it, hard to know that morally it all started off on weird footing. 

Maybe if they’d met without the knowledge of their relationship it’d have been easier to forget about, but it’s been there from day one. Phil has always known Dan as his student, and Dan has always known Phil as his teacher. IfDan hadn’t have gone to that original meeting, if the first time they’d laid eyes on each other had been in that coffee shop - no, it’s no use thinking in what ifs. This is what it is, nothing either of them can do to change it.

  
  
Dan thinks the last thing Phil would want was his peers looking down on him, because Dan might be twenty-nine but that means squat when you’re enrolled as an official student - _Student teacher liaisons are strictly not advised._ He should’ve applied for a teaching job here instead, fell in love with the professor down the hall (not that he was in love).

“Your mum has the pale vibes.” Phil finally, finally replies. And he looks pleased with himself all things considered. 

“I’ll be sure to let her know, i'm sure it’ll prompt her to take the first flight to anywhere hot.” And it’s all too comfortable, and it’s all too easy and it’s all going to be too devastating when they both realise they can’t give into it completely. They can dance around each other all they like, blurt out words that should mean something but _can’t_ mean something. 

  
“Who’s your new friend?”

  
  
“Oh. Greg. I think you’d get on, you seem the type of guy to have an array of gel pens, too.” Dan perches on the edge of the small desk that Phil had set himself up at, looks down at the array of papers scattered all over it. There’s nothing particularly eye catching until - _Daniel Howell?_

_  
  
_“Oi! Nosey.” Phil hopelessly gathers them all up in his arms, screws them up more than anything else. “They might’ve been exam questions.”

  
  
“Am I an exam question?” He could be, he’d never thought of that. Once upon a time he had the potential to be an entire essay question, to be something kids had to actually study.

  
  
“You were, not anymore. Can’t give them an exam question on something that haven’t actually read. Evil.” He licks his thumb before flipping through the papers, hands Dan the one with his name on.

  
  
“Oh. I was taking the piss, but I actually am.”

  
  
“You can try answering it for yourself, if you want. I’ll mark it , and everything, with my gel pens. I’ll one up Greg but having them be fruit scented, hope you like cherry.” Dan watches in horror as Phil shoves the remaining papers into his bag, a haphazard mess with absolutely zero organisation system in sight. 

“How the fuck did they let you become an actual university lecturer, that physically hurt to watch.” He almost wants to snatch the bag away and teach Phil how to be a neat human being, but he’s already slung the bag over his shoulder.

  
  
“Big brain, Daniel.”

  
  
“We established already that it’s actually beans.”

  
  
“It’s only beans before i’ve had my coffee, you caught be just before then the other day. I won’t let it happen again.” He glances up at the clock, seemingly jumping out of his skin when he realises the hands have moved and time does still actually exist even whilst they’re talking. “Oppps. I’m going to have to run now, stop being so distracting.” And he does - run that is.

Just before he’s out of the door he adds, “and remember, talk about yourself nicely whilst you’re answering that. It’s one of my favourite books!”

-

The university canteen leaves a lot to be desired, the vegan options are lowkey offensive and he ends up with sushi that looks to be stuffed with avocado and some sort of paste. He doesn’t read the label printed on the box, he’d rather not know what the paste is.

  
“Dan!” Greg is loud, too. He shouts across the room even though it isn’t that big.

  
  
“Alright?” He had someone with him this time, a woman who looks to be slap bang in the middle of Greg and Dan’s age.

  
  
“This is my good friend Chris.”  


“We literally met this morning.” She sends a pointed look at Dan, one that screams i’m suffering but oddly enjoying it.

  
  
“Friendships can form very quickly. This is my good friend Dan.”

  
  
“We literally also met this morning.” Dan grins, and he sort of gets the look Chris had sent him now.

  
  
“Us old timers have to stick together.” Greg sits in-between them with a lunch that looks as though it could feed five rugby players.

  
  
“I’m twenty-nine.” He almost whines, poking at his sushi with a plastic fork. Shouldn’t they have all been swapped to wooden now? Save the planet, and all that.

  
  
“Is that why you can’t use chopsticks? You young people.” Greg sighs, shaking his head as though he’s deeply embarrassed to even be seen with Dan.

  
  
“They didn’t have any! This is a university canteen, not yo-sushi.”

  
  
Chris saves him, cutting in with her own comment of, “And i’m thirty five. We’re not over the hill yet, mate.”

  
  
“I’m the wise one here, I see. Be kind or I won’t help you when you ask for life advice. I have lots of it.” He apparently only doesn’t speak when he’s eating. It’s like feeding time at the zoo, the vigour in which he goes in, like watching a David Attenborough documentary.

  
  
“Do you think he’s taken something?” Chris asks, dragging her eyes away from Greg to meet Dan’s.

  
  
“I’d say so, something that doesn’t look as thought it’s ever actually going to wear off.”

  
  
She nods her head in agreement, dark curls moving with the motion. “I feel like we’re sort of stuck with him now, though.” She stares at him once more, seems to come to some decision. “Whatever. Anyway - you’re both on English lit, right? I’m on language but some of the optional modules seem to have a crossover.”

  
  
“Yeah, guessing you met him in the crossover.” And he doesn't even listen whilst he’s eating.

  
  
“Mhm, lucky me.” She smiles, a hint of white teeth that leave Dan feeling like he should go to the dentist for a good scrape. “Weirdly, though, I feel like we’re gonna end up as the oddest version of the three musketeers ever.”

  
  
“Yeah. Same, actually.”

-

They don’t even try to see each other again that day, it just happens. A bump in the hall as Dan tries to leg it to the toilets.

  
  
“No running in the halls, don’t make me give you detention.”

  
  
“I don’t actually think you can, it’d be more holding me against my will.” And despite the pressing issue of his bladder - it’s about to explode - he stands there and speaks. He’s shifting from foot to foot, desperately trying to think of anything but the noise of running water.

  
  
“Dan, do you need to go to-“

  
  
“Yeah, i’m gonna piss myself.” The shifting has turned into a little dance now, something that he might break out on a particularly drunken night in a bar.

  
  
“Go before I end up having to mop up after you.”

  
  
Phil’s waiting for him just outside the door, leant against the wall scrolling through his phone. He looks up when he hears Dan shuffle out into the hall. “Better?” He asks, and there’s a smirk there that Dan would like to kiss off.

  
  
“Miles.” And Phil looks intent on walking Dan out of the building, so Dan decides to let him. Five more minutes spent with Phil won’t kill him. “What was with that exam question on me? I don’t use humour as a defence mechanism, at least not in the book.”

  
  
“I never said that you did.” Phil looks at him, seemingly trying to assess Dan’s mood before he offers up more words. “I was more suggesting you use it as a way to make the audience comfortable. There are some heavy topics, and without your frequent delves into the land of being funny, it would’ve been hard for a lot of people to digest. It’s clever. Makes your book more commercial.”

  
  
“I didn’t want people to think - I don’t know. I suppose I didn’t want to write something that only made people sad? I wanted moments of relief in there, the moments of relief I would’ve liked in my own life, probably.” And he’s said too much, always says too much when Phil is involved. “It wasn’t about being commercial, it was about giving people a break.”

  
  
“Oh, Dan.” And the affection in his tone almost makes Dan trip over his own feet. He’d just made it obvious the book was about himself, and Phil wasn’t looking at him with pity, like everyone else, more with an expression of awe and wonder. “I always thought maybe there was a bit more to it, too much truth in the world of make believe. I think it’s brave to put yourself on the page like that.”

  
  
Dan shrugs, not used to the praise. “I just thought- it’s like, you write what you know, don’t you?”

  
  
“I don’t like that you ever had to know that.”

  
_  
(Living my truth - warnings for depression, suicide ideation and non-existent happy endings.)_

_  
  
_“I’m better now, though. I think I had to get that out of me to move past it. Not that i’m fine now, not entirely. I have days, weeks, moments. It’s just i’ve learnt how to not let them entirely take over.” And the therapy had helped a lot, given Dan the chance to just spill his guts to someone who he knew wouldn’t come back with false platitudes. Laura was his fifth try on the therapist carousel, and she wasn’t afraid to tell Dan what he needed to hear exactly when he needed to hear it. He’d been with her for six years and now he had a new topic of conversation for her - Phil.

  
  
“Non-existent happy endings a thing you’re still sticking to?”

  
  
“My last three books are happy!” And they were, just not in the way Dan had imagined. They were a bit too _Mills and Boon._

_  
  
_“Yeah, but, in an obvious way.” Phil holds open the door, Dan steps out into the angriest rain he’d ever seen.

  
  
“I think that’s an insult. Also, ew, what the fuck is this?” He’s wearing a jacket for style rather than functionality, something that doesn’t have a hood and would likely soak through as quick as a Primark paper bag.

  
  
“It’s not, actually, it’s a question. I’ll ask you it properly later on. Want a lift?” Phil ducks beneath the trees, they offer barely any protection and instead whip him when a particular harsh breeze comes along.

  
  
Dan thinks about it for one entire second and then a car drives through a puddle beside him, leaving him stood on the pavement looking like a drowned rat. “Yes.” 

-

“I changed my mind, Phil. No. Let me out.”

  
  
“You sound like my mum.”

  
  
“Your mum is clearly a very sensible lady.”

  
  
Phil drives like he’s auditioning for a part in _Grand Theft Auto: The Movie._ Dan sits with his hands firmly attached to the door handle, afraid that if he lets go he’ll go flying out of the front window.

  
  
“You’re so dramatic, i’m not even anywhere near the speed limit!” Phil whines, taking his eyes off the road to stare Dan down.

  
  
“Phil! Look. Oh my god. I’m never getting into a car with you ever again.” And really he shouldn’t have been in here in the first place, his plan of only seeing Phil during teaching hours had failed on day one.

  
  
“Dan, where’d you live? I just realised i’m driving to my own house.”

  
  
“Oh. How’d we forget that?”

  
  
“Beans?”

  
  
“Beans.” Dan agrees, chewing at his thumbnail as he debates how long he can put off telling Phil, just so he can get a little glimpse into his life. The exterior of a home probably doesn’t give all that much away, but Dan is greedy for any bit of Phil knowledge he can get.

  
  
“Earth to Dan. You do live on earth, don’t you? I have nowhere near enough petrol to get you to the moon.” His eyes are back on the road and it gives Dan a chance to just look, look at the weird shape of his skull and the way his hairline, on this side of his head, had a weird skew to it - had he cut it himself? He was a mixture of angles and weird - and it was all very perfect.

  
  
“I live in your mind, rent free.” And he could see Phil itching to turn his head, but he was trying to prove how good a driver he was.

  
“Not rent free. Your student loans are all mine.”

  
  
He didn’t disagree, and that’s all Dan could focus on. He knew just how much of a presence Phil was in his own mind, wondered if the same could be said for Dan in Phil’s. It made him feel a bit less like a loser, knowing Phil potentially thought about him.

  
  
“Such a rip off, mate. I live up near the prison, you know the big apartment buildings just behind it? Kinda in front of Victoria train station?”

  
  
“Mate? Alright. Didn’t realise you were cool _cool._ ” He says it with a brightness that sounds put on, his face the same as in the coffee shop when Dan had reminded him that he was student.

  
  
“Did you see how quick Greg wanted to be my friend? Of course i’m cool _cool.”  
_

Phil apparently does know the apartment blocks Dan was speaking of, taking the same route as the bus even though it took ten times longer than if he’d just gone around the edge of the city. Dan decides to think it’s because Phil wants to spend more time with him, and not just because he’s a little bit clueless with directions.

  
  
“Can you make it to your flat alive?” Phil asks, eyes surveying the rain still pouring down around them. It’s bouncing off the car in waves, and sometimes it’s so loud it sounds as though it could pierce through the metal. “I have-“ he unbuckles his seat belt and leans awkwardly across his own seat and into the back of the car. Dan has a bit of a moment when Phil’s shirt come untucked from his trousers, rides up his torso. It’s all very cliche, a moment he’d read a thousand times before in a thousand stories - _a sliver of skin._

_  
_“What’re you doing? You just nearly elbowed me in the face.”

  
  
“Wait- ha! Ta-da.” He’s back in his own seat now, looking ruffled and red in the face. He’s holding up a coat with a genuine look of glee, like he was handing Dan a bar of gold. “It’ll keep you dry, and don’t say yours could. It’s made out of .. not even fabric.”

  
  
“Then what, Phil, what is it actually made out of? Air? The broad spectrum of human emotions? Dust?” He’s arguing but he takes the coat anyway, slips it on over his own. It’s a bit bulky - makes him look like the _michelin man_ \- but it’s Phil’s and _he’s_ wearing it.

  
  
“I don’t know, Dan, maybe it’s made out of all the kindness in my heart.” He’s looking Dan up and down, trying to figure out of he likes how Dan looks in _his_ clothes - the look on his face says yes.

  
  
“Then i’ll be very, very delicate with it.” And he needs to get out now, they’ve been sat outside his apartment building for ten minutes and he’s pretty sure they’re on a double yellow line. He opens the door, immediately met with an onslaught of rain that actually makes him glad for the coat, glad in a way that isn’t just having something of Phil’s. 

He hears the words just as he closes the door, barely there and maybe Phil had intended for them to go unheard. 

  
  
“Please do, Dan. It’s very fragile.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ty for reading! again if you enjoyed any part of it please let me know, comments are such a dream and i appreciate them all! 
> 
> living my truth is Dan's first book, btw, sorry if i didn't make it obvious! when it comes to depression I am sort of going off my own experiences with it (+how other ppl reacted) because obvious i don't know the ins and outs of Dan's! I wanted to write it from a perspective that rang true to me, so I could write it authentically instead of trying to just use guesswork. ( but if anyone ever finds anything insensitive please let me know (cos like we all experience depression differently and what may be ok 4 me may be bad 4 you to read!!!!) or if you think i'm missing any like warning tags also please please let me know as iw ouldn't want someone to come into this and read something that they really don't wanna read


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my (tentative) upload schedule is now Monday & Friday. 
> 
> Unfun fact: I hate even numbers so this fics word count will forever be odd. 
> 
> fictropes.tumblr.com

“Watch this.” Greg is clearly trying to whisper, but his whisper is more someone’s usual volume.

  
  
“I can actually hear you both, you know.” Dan glares the best he can, hoping they can sense it somehow just from looking at the back of his head.

  
  
Dan knows what they’re talking about, Phil regularly walks past the room they’ve claimed as their own, Greg laughs at every single one of Dan’s longing glances. There wasn’t any use trying to hide it from them anymore. Greg had figured it out in the space of a single lecture, Chris in the split second it took for Phil to walk by this room the first time. He was apparently the most obvious person she’d ever met, and she was surprised he wasn’t floating along the ground with his heart leading the way.

  
  
“I don’t need to watch to know what that boy is doing, it’s literally like clockwork by now. Big hand and little hand both point to Phil.” Chris lightly kicks his shin beneath the table, laughs when he still doesn’t turn - even to tell her off.

  
  
It’s been two whole weeks now. 

Two weeks of too long talks after lectures.

  
  
Two weeks of Dan _forgetting_ to return Phil’s coat.

  
  
“You’re both dickheads.’’

Dan tracks him all the way down the hall, watches as he dips into the lecture theatre where Dan will see him in about ten minutes time. Monday mornings 9am & Friday afternoons 2pm - the only lessons on Dan’s schedule that Dan gives a shit about.

  
  
“Maybe, but we’re keeping you from making a complete fool out of yourself. You can’t tell me you wouldn’t have legged it down the hall after him if we hadn’t been sat here.” Chris can read him like a book, and teases him like the big sister he’d never had.

  
  
“He was carrying loads of shit, I would’ve just offered to help. That’s polite, that’s just me being nice. I’d do it for anyone.”

  
  
“Greg was carrying loads of shit earlier, you barely gave him a second glance.” She challenges, and it’s plainly obvious then that she has a kid and can see through all of Dan’s bullshit.

-  
  
“ _You can’t trick someone who has a lot of experience dealing with an actual five year old, Danny.”_

_“Eh?” He’d been trying to convince her that he just appreciates Phil as a teacher, and not as someone he plainly wants to kiss, cuddle, live with, buy a dog with. Whatever._

_  
  
“I a have kid, haven’t told you that, have I? A girl. I had her when I’d just turned seventeen, so I sort of missed out on coming to uni myself. I know I technically could’ve gone, but I was already juggling a kid and a job and - I didn’t want to burn myself out. I wanted to be the best I could for her, you know? I always knew i’d come when I could.”_

_  
  
“Has she gone off to uni now, then?” Dan asks, and he now realises her and Greg have perfectly taken the place of her literal child. He decided to have a private conversation with Greg later, one in which he lays out a clear method of how to appear cooler to one of the coolest women he’d ever met._

_  
  
“Yeah. Different one though, obviously. Think she would’ve killed me if i’d gone to the same one, even if I am a very cool mum.”_

_  
  
“You are.” Dan agrees, because Dan can imagine it._

_-_

_  
_“Every cloud has a liner.”

  
  
_“What?”  
_

“You know!”

  
  
“No, Phil, what the fuck. It’s every cloud has a silver lining.”

  
  
“Same thing.” He waves his hand as though dismissing Dan, but Dan really isn’t going to let it go that easily.

  
  
“It isn’t!Please tell me you know it isn’t. Oh my god, I hope you’re not in charge of teaching idioms, you’ll turn all your students into a bunch of _idiots.”_ Phil shoves him off his desk, then catches him barely a second later.

  
  
“You’re missing my point entirely,” his hand lingers on Dan’s bicep, strokes down to his wrist before disappearing back to his own pocket, Dan’s heart goes double time, “my point was you being here means you can come to this stupid event with me.”

  
  
“Is it going to be filled with a bunch of stuffy people who think Jk Rowling’s dumb fuck tweets are right? Those sort of literary people? The sort who’d use my book pages to pick up their dogs shit?” He’s being vulgar and Phil pinches him for it, a quick thing to the skin on the back of his hand.

“Daniel Howell, I’ll be there and that’s all that matters.” He sounds so sure of himself that Dan wonders if he’s pegged onto the _obvious_ everyone else can see. “And if anyone mentions her tweets in the context of being right, then it’s obvious that we fight them to the death.I don’t see the issue here.” 

“Will there be free food?” asks Dan, already knowing he’ll go but Phil deserves to suffer for at least a second; Pinching hurt.

  
  
“Yeah, those little fancy things. You’ll have to take the entire tray if you even want to feel even half full - you’re much too tall.”  


“We’re basically the same height, you absolute bum.” He stands up to prove it, takes mild satisfaction in the fact he can look down at Phil (even if it is just by an inch - maybe two).

  
  
“The extra inch makes all the difference.”

  
  
“ _Oh_ , does it?” Dan asks, amused and a bit more brave in the face of openly flirting with Phil at the front of a lecture hall.

  
  
“I didn’t- Shutup! You know I meant, god, shutup.” He’s gone red in the face, but his eyes are darker than they usually are.

  
  
“Mhm. Whatever. Tell me what this event actually is, I feel like you’redragging me along to some weird group ego-wanking fest.” He’s sort of pushing his luck today, seeing how much he can say before Phil shoos him away.

  
  
“Your words are like poetry to my ears.” He deadpans, apparently in the mood to entertain Dan and his foul mouth for a little while longer. “I think I saw that exact sentence on the invitation actually, or something akin - _come on down for the annual literary group masturbation session.”_

  
  
Dan makes a stupid, stupid noise - like he's choked on a mouthful of air - pulls a face at Phil. “You can never ever accuse me again of being the vulgar one. I see your game, Mr innocent act.”

  
  
“So dramatic. Are you absolutely positive you weren't supposed to sign up for the acting course? It’s not too late to switch.” Dan almost wants to say yes and run to the office to make the change, because then Phil wouldn’t be his teacher and they’d be free to run wild with whatever this _thing_ between them was.

  
  
“Positive. Now tell me what we’re actually supposed to be going - is there an open bar?” 

_Ready?_

As i’ll ever be.  
  


They’d exchanged numbers at Dan’s insistence that he wasn’t going to brave public transportation alone, and if Phil wanted Dan to go he had to pick him up.

  
  
_“Dan, you don’t need me to pick you up, and you don’t need to take a bus, tram, whatever.” Phil dug through his bag for the event invite, handed it over to Dan who’d perched himself back on the desk. The address on the bottom of the sheet was for the hotel, essentially, next to Dan’s apartment block._

_  
  
“So?”_

_  
  
“What do you mean, so? It’s right there.”_

_  
  
“And? You’re the one who wants me to come, so you have to come and get me.”_

_  
  
“Seriously?” Phil sighs._

_  
  
“Seriously.”_

_  
  
Phil pointed out that Dan had said - just a week ago - that he was never getting into Phil’s car again. Dan ignored him._

  
  
He’s dressed up, a suit he’d not worn since some award thing his publishers had made him go to. It’s black, cut off just above the ankle, makes Dan’s legs lookimpossibly longer. He looks alright, even he knew that much.

He’s already steeled himself for the fact Phil would be wearing something similar, but nothing could actually prepare him for real thing. He would’ve been embarrassed if he was the only one tongue tied, but Phil seems to be having a hard time getting any words out, too.

  
  
“You look nice.” Dan smiles, words coming to him eventually, his smile was soft and sincere - a world away from the usual _i’m obviously flirting with you_ version.

_  
_“Thanks. You look- you know you look good. Get in. Can’t have his majesty possibly walking for an entire thirty seconds, the world would collapse.” Phil holds the car door open for him, and to passersby this _could_ look like a date.

  
  
“My shoes are suede, they’d get ruined if I walked, the ground is wet. It’s always raining here.” Dan’s voice is in whiny territory, “also it’s dark.”

  
  
“Not a fan of it?”

Dan shrugs, it isn’t so much the darkness alone. It’s the trees they’ve planted around the residential areas, they all loom a little bit too ominously for Dan once the sky begins to fade. The shadows on his blinds at nighttime were enough to have him sleeping solely on his left side, just so he could stare at the wall and not the branches trying to reach out for him. “Suppose not.”

  
  
“You wanna know what i’m not a fan of?” Phil asks, apparently twigging onto Dan’s reluctance to speak about his own fear. “Horses.”

  
  
“Ok. Explain.”

  
  
“Have you ever seen a horse up close? Ever actually took a second to look it in the eye? Oh my god, if you look a horse in the eyes you will know that they have _secrets_.” Phil’s entire body seems to visibly shudder, a horse induced full body tremor.

  
  
“Secrets? Secrets about what exactly? Area 51?”

  
  
“About how if they decide to chuck you off one day that they can- they can actually stomp on your head. Have you seen how huge they are? If they decided to use their horsey hooves and stomp, Dan, that’s it. That’s their secret!” They’re in the hotel carpark now, neither of them overly invested in moving if it means stopping talking.

  
  
“I see. Sometimes, if anyone ever asks how my course is going, what my lectures are like, i’m like - _oh, Phil? Yeah, he’s a genius_. Then you say horses have secrets to do with their horsey hooves, and I start thinking, hm, maybe not.”

“One day you’ll see.” And it sounds like a promise, or-

  
  
“Is that a threat?”

  
  
“Yes.”

  
  
They bicker back and forth for far too long on the logistics of _horse secrets_ , Phil only stopping Dan’s miniature rant when he catches sight of the blinking clock on the dash; they’d been sat in the car for fifteen minutes.

“Out. Get out. Shush. No more distracting me.” Phil leans over Dan to push open the passenger side door - maybe Dan will have a heart attack at some point today.

  
  
“Me?” Dan near yells, “it was you who started going off on some weird horse tangent!”

  
  
“I would never. Now get out.” The authority Phil displays as he says it makes Dan a little bit horny.

  
  
To avoid an awkward semi he does as he’s told and waits to be joined on the pavement - and he’s shocked all over again when Phil undoes the one button of his suit jacket. It isn’t _fair.  
  
-_

It’s fancy - and there _is_ an open bar.

  
  
The event itself doesn’t really have a purpose, if you asked Dan it was for networking and licking each others arses.

  
  
It’s filled with three types of people. Authors, publishers and academics. Dan doesn’t feel as out of his depth once he realises he fits into at least one of the categories.

  
  
There are a few people who know of him, offer him weak compliments that he’ll forget by the end of the night. One expected turn of events is Phil, he stays firmly glued to Dan’s side for most of the night. Dan wants to say he won’t run away if Phil wants to go off and speak to someone alone, but then he realises it’s probably not about _him_.  


He loses Phil exactly seventy minutes into the night. He’s swept away by a bloke with a square jaw, blonde hair, and stupid hands that keep touching Phil.

  
  
He’s been pretty tame considering the alcohol is free, but seeing Phil and this tosspot interact has him downing more flutes of champagne than he can count.

  
  
Dan ends up on the outskirts of the room, a face like absolute thunder. And he has no right, does he? No right to be such a moody bastard. Phil isn’t _his_ , and even if he was Dan still wouldn’t have the rights. Phil is his own person, he’s allowed to do whatever he wants, talk to whoever he wants. Dan’s head know that, but he just can’t seem to communicate it to his face.

  
  
He’s tipsy by the time Phil returns twenty minutes later, or drunk.

The food, designed for human beings one inch tall (or under), hadn’t been anywhere near enough to soak up the five flutes of champagne Dan had tipped down his neck.

  
  
“Who was _that_?” He demands, it’s a question but it sounds like too much of a command. It doesn’t work on Phil, already immune to Dan and his ever so brief temper tantrums.

  
  
“Someone.” Phil shrugs, unfazed, taking the half empty flute from between Dan’s fingers and downing the rest of it himself. “That’s all I can have, what. waste of an open bar. Got to drive _somebody_ home.” He says pointedly, placing the flute back down on a passing tray with and elegance that would surprise Dan if he weren’t so riled up from Mr Square Jaw Mctouchy. 

“Someone?”

  
  
“Dan.” Phil warns, that voice from earlier back, and Dan vows to be better immediately. He schools his facial expression into something surprisingly neutral, and now that his head is out of his own arse he _notices._

  
  
Phil’s hands are shaking.

  
  
It sobers him up quicker than anything else ever could.

  
  
Dan takes a step forward and reaches for him, hooks their little fingers together for barely a second. 

“Phil, do you want go?”

“Is that ok?”

  
  
“Course it is.”

  
  
He grips the steering wheel in a way that looks painful for the thirty second drive, then for another thirty seconds as they sit outside Dan’s building. He looks like he’s steeling himself for something, so Dan stays quiet and lets him get there alone.

  
  
“I’m anxious - my doctor says I have anxiety. And I mean, it’s- I feel like I don’t _deserve_ to say that. Like people look at me, how I am, the fact I teach that many people everyday. And they think he’s just - saying that. He has to be good with crowds, he doesn’t get to say he’s-“

  
  
“Phil.” Dan does stop him this time, his face looks two seconds away from crumpling - two seconds away from bursting into tears.“You don’t have to explain yourself, and you certainly don’t have to justify it. If that’s how you feel, then that’s how you feel. No one - _no one_ \- gets to question that, ok? Ever.”

  
  
The look he gets given in reply knocks him off centre entirely, it’s as though the world has been reduced to nothing - to just the two of them sat here in this car. There are a million and one things Dan could say - _wants_ to say - but instead he settles for reaching out and squeezing the top of Phil’s arm.

  
  
Phil gives him a quizzical smile, then he’s speaking again, “you help. I mean you being there tonight helped. I struggle with crowds like the one in there. I don’t often go to things like that, and if I do I leave pretty early. Tonight I would’ve left ages ago if I knew you weren’t there with me.”

  
  
And it made sense now, how Phil had stayed so firmly by his side. He’d been right to think it wasn’t anything to do with him, more to do with how Phil felt.

  
  
“Then I suppose i’ll have to fill my wardrobe with suits and follow you to all of them.” Dan doesn’t mind that at all, he’d follow Phil to the end of the earth.

  
  
“Yeah, I think that’ll work fine.”

  
  
“Phil. I still have your coat, do you want to come up and grab it?” Dan asks.

  
  
Phil looks torn, his hands back to gripping the wheel too tightly. His lips are pursed, barely visible. “No, sorry. I have something to do for class tomorrow, something I have to finish off. I’ll get it another day? I have too many coats at home anyway.”

  
  
Dan nods, he’d been expecting the rejection. They weren’t there yet, Dan didn’t know if they ever would be.

  
  
“So i’m stuck with having the actual _Michelin Man_ hung up in my hallway?” Dan groans, because humour is the easiest way to deal with all this. He can do funny, he can do flirting that isn’t serious enough to be taken anywhere. 

“Mhm. ‘Fraid so.” Phil doesn’t look like he’s quite there yet - still buried in his own head. “ I’ll see you tomorrow? Make sure you’ve read the chapter.”

  
  
Phil does this often. Anytime it seems to be going a little too far, anytime words are _too_ much. He reminds himself that Dan is his student.

  
  
“Yeah. I’ve read it. Perfect student, me.” Dan’s playing with the thread on his jacket button - doesn’t overly enjoy the idea of looking up at the non-existent expression on Phil’s face - it looks as though it’s in danger of falling off. He’ll have to sew it back in place later, make sure it’s ready for another trip out with Phil.

  
  
“You’re something like that.”

  
  
Dan nods - sighs - then eventually leaves. 

_-  
  
_ His phone beeps an hour later, Phil’s name flashing up on the screen.  
 _  
I’m sorry_

_  
  
_For?

_  
  
I don’t know._

And then comes a quick follow up, something that makes Dan smile despite all the mess. 

_Thankyou, Dan._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you enjoyed this chapter! I want funny but I also want moments of seriousness, I hope I got the balance right here! If u have any thoughts ( good or bad) on characterisation then plz let me know! I’m really focused on getting to a point where u know who is speaking even if I don’t specify who u know
> 
> HUGE thankyou to everyone who has left a comment, from the bottom of my heart. I usually upload this quite late and then i get excited to wake up and read the comments lmao. It's truly a big thing for anyone who writes fic, at least I think so! And super super biggest ever thanks to the people who have commented on every chapter to let me know you're still enjoying it - they make my heart feel very soft<3.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok i lied i do not have an upload schedule

_This_ is the morning the 9am resentment kicks in - Phil _had_ been right.

  
  
He doesn’t quite have an all out hangover, just something lingering right at his temples.

  
  
“Ugh.”

  
  
He’d wanted time for this -time to tease himself, to work himself up. He’d wantedto roll over onto his front, hump one of his pillows until he couldn’t take it anymore.

Of all the mornings to have Phil, it had to be the morning he woke up like _this_. With this immediate urge to get off, something he couldn't will away and even if he could he knew it wouldn’t be worth it. He’d walk around a ball of pent up sexual frustration all day.

  
  
He had three minutes to knock one out, if he wanted to be on time.

Dan doesn’t even attempt to stop his thoughts - his fantasies - from drifting to Phil. If he tried they’d only get worse, and right now they were actually pretty tame. Just about how Phil’s thighs had looked in that navy suit, the voice he’d used whilst ordering Dan about.

  
  
He spits on his hand, his lube was buried somewhere in his beside drawer - he doesn’t have the luxury of time.

  
  
It’s a quick, desperate thing. He holds his breath and thinks of Phil’s voice - stern and demanding, “ _come for me, Dan._ ”

It takes two and a half minutes for him to spill out over his own fist.

  
  
He waits for the guilt to come, but all he feels is bone deep bliss. His legs are wobbly as he walks to the bathroom - like a baby deer -and he realises that he could’ve just wanked in the shower and saved himself the mess.

  
  
His legs give out on him at the last second, forcing him to catch himself on the door handle. The bruise blossoms instantaneously, an angry looking thing on his forearm. It was worth it, worth it for the quietness that settles in and relieves him from thinking about how _it’s_ catching up with him.

-

“Oh no! What did you do?”

Dan tilts his head to the side, looking every bit like a puppy who doesn’t understand.

  
  
“Eh?”

  
  
“There! This.” Phil lightly traces his fingers over Dan’s arm, stopping to tap just beside the bruise.

  
  
Dan short circuits, scrabbling for a reason that wasn’t - _I wanked to the thought of you and felt so wobbly afterwards that I tripped into a door handle._

 _  
  
_“Oh, just smacked it on the corner of my bedside table when I was trying to turn my alarm of. Had this nine am lecture to make.” He prays his voice stays even, that his face cooperates with him for once. He manages to maintain eye-contact, remembers something about only liars not being able to keep it up. That was probably bullshit, though, there were too many other reasons why sometimes you couldn’t look another person in the eye.

  
  
Phil looks back, nothing in his expression to indicate he knows.

  
  
He wonders what would happen if he just lent in, if Phil would jump back or meet him halfway. It’s all he’s thought about lately, what would happen if he just _tried_. Would the world collapse around them? Would Dan’s world collapse if Phil stepped back? He measures it up in his mind, the potential outcomes, the way in which his entire life could change no matter which way the coin fell.

  
  
 _No._ Not yet.

“Don’t blame me for not having control of your limbs.” He seems to realise then that he’s still holding Dan, awkwardly pats his arm.

Phil’s different today - just a little flatter, a little less loud, the brightness in his eyes dimmed in a way that makes Dan _ache_.

Nobody else would notice, but Dan always will.

Monday means only five minutes of this, but they always push it to ten - and Phil always ends up running down to the hall to make it to his next lesson.

This time with Phil is the opposite of a liminal space, a place he’d remain in forever if it were possible.

“Not my fault i’m so long and gangly.” He’s been staring off into space for too long without giving an answer, mind preoccupied with thinking about all of the what ifs. When he comes back down to earth Phil’s got a furrowed brow and seemingly no patience - not when the time they have is so limited.

  
  
“I suppose not.” Phil sighs, and he still doesn’t quite seem with it yet.

  
  
Dan wants to wrap him up in his arms, hold him until everything feels alright again. Last night had flipped a switch in his brain and now all he wants to do is protect.

He decides he can be brave, just for today, just for this one moment that seems disconnected from time.

  
  
The hug is easy.

He draws Phil into his chest and holds him until he feels the heaviness deflate, until his shoulders - that had been hunched up near his ears - drop. They fit. Every piece of them slotting in until they’re perfectly wrapped up in each-other.

  
  
“You’re good.” Dan whispers, equal parts fond and overwhelmed - he doesn’t know why he feels the latter, he’d been the one to initiate it.

He should’ve forced himself to go longer without the knowledge of what Phil felt like in his arms, pressed up against him, now it’s going to be all he can think about. He’s invented his own special type of torture, but then Phil clings a little tighter and Dan decides it’s worth it.

It’s nearing their ten minutes.

He gives him a final squeeze and giggles when Phil does the exact same thing in return - could they go on with this back and forth forever? If Dan never lets go then he’ll never have to count down the days, minutes, hours until he can do this again.

He lets go.

“No. You’re good, you’re so good, Dan.” And he sounds like he means it, like it’s a statement of fact as opposed to an opinion. “But get out of my lecture hall before you’re late for your next thing, Adam will send me flying into space if he finds out i’m always keeping you behind.”

  
  
“Ok. I’ll see you later?”

  
Phil’s remains quiet for a long, suffocating moment. “Yeah. Course.”

-

“Started that essay yet?” Greg asks, furiously scribbling away in his a4 pad. He’d insisted that typing it up wasn’t the same, he’d write first copy it over onto a laptop later.

  
  
“Er- no. I’m an procrastinator of epic proportions, i’ll probably start the week - if not the night - before it’s due. Work best under pressure, and all that.” He’s been googling references, that alone is a miracle.

  
  
“Goodness. Don’t know how you people do it. I start straight away, if I don't it seems like time moves seventy percent quicker than usual. Some of the authors I publish definitely do the same as you, sit holed in our offices all night. I admit it’s some fine work, but I still have no idea _how._ ” He looks genuinely puzzled - oh how the other half live.

  
  
“Woah. Wait. What?” they’d never ended up on the topic of why Greg was here, what he’d done previously.

  
  
“Oh! Right, i’m a enigma.” His eyes sparkle at that, “I own a publishing house. It was my fathers and I took it over once he passed away. I fell in love with it all, thought coming here and getting properly taught about it all would only help. My husband is running it at the second, he’s an actual author so he’s probably having the time of his life.”

  
  
“No way.” Dan mutters beneath his breath.

A publisher, an author husband. What a power couple, honestly.

-

Dan doesn’t see Phil again in person until Friday. The days before then drag along unbearably slow.

  
  
They’ve texted back and forth, mainly nonsense - and some more horse talk.

Dan goes running for the first time since he’d moved here, finds it frees up some space in his mind and the _thing_ isn’t quite as close as it had been on Monday morning. It had been an agreement between him and Laura, no matter how much he didn’t want to move his body it was better if he did. He flipped between running and yoga, sometimes he went to the gym but ended up too intimidated by all the muscle men in the corner to do anything but pound away at the treadmill.

Running outside is freeing in a way that a treadmill is not, time passes quicker when you have things to look at, dogs to silently scream over.

He tells Phil all about it.

  
  
ugh. I know running is good for me but i’m a bit dead rn.

  
  
_You run?_

Yes, need to get me some of that sweet, sweet serotonin. plus i get to see dogs and isn’t that just a thrill for the heart

  
  
_Oh my god, did you take photos? Did you steal one?_

no and no. don’t encourage theft, you heathen

_Use capital letters, you fiend._

-

He’s particularly energetic today - walking from one end of the hall to the other, throwing his arms up wildly as he gesticulates his point. It’s oddly entertaining, plus he’s getting the added bonus of seeing his backside as he goes the opposite way.

  
  
There’s a quiz on _kahoot!_ halfway through to see if they’ve remembered all of the main points of last weeks lecture. Dan enters his name as _Horse Secrets._ When Phil spots it he spins around so quickly he almost loses his balance, no one else notices, too busy staring down at their phones. So Phil gets the luxury of being able to stick his tongue out at Dan.

  
  
“Childish.” Dan mouths.

  
  
“Your mum is childish.” Phil mouths back, then he’s pressing one hand up against his own cheek with only one particular finger up.

  
  
It shouldn’t make Dan smile as big as it does, Phil is caught off guard by the reaction and seemingly can’t stop his eyes from rapidly moving between Dan’s dimples. It’s moments like this that make Dan feel as though he isn’t alone with his thoughts - with his feelings - that Phil’s heart _wants_ just as much as his does.

-

“He what? What didn’t you text me about it!” Phil’s pouting now, seemingly genuinely upset that Dan hadn’t shared everything.

  
  
“Because I wanted to tell you in person. It’s a wild story, can’t be contained in text.”

  
  
“He just kicked your door?” Phil takes a seat, strapping himself for the ride.

  
  
“Yeah. So. I’m just sat there minding me own business, right? Then I hear this massive thud. I nearly shit myself - it happens again. Then the thud turns to this insistent knocking, I think maybe my amazon parcel person just really wants me to get my package.” He takes a deep breath, he’s been speaking a mile a minute. “So I answer it, shaking like an actual leaf. It’s a random bloke, never ever seen him before in my life. He asks for my name, so I tell him, cos he looks like he could kill me on the spot and I’ve got half a pizza left that I really wanna eat. He asks if someone called Derrick is there. I tell him no. He nods and just leaves - like apparently this Derrick is his actual arch-nemesis.”

  
  
“Do you think he escaped from the prison behind your house?” Phil asks, all wide eyes.

  
  
“No, Phil. No I do _not_ think he escaped from prison.” Dan rolls his eyes heavenwards - Phil’s brain works in an entirely different way to anyone else when it comes to the concept of, well, anything. Big wild thoughts always popping up in space of smaller, more believable ones. He says them all with his entire chest, not caring if he’s wrong.“Do you not think that would’ve been on the news?”

  
  
“Maybe.” He huffs, “so just like that he’s gone?”

  
  
“Yeah, he left an actual boot print on my door he kicked it so fucking hard. I’ve tried like seven different cleaning things to try and get it off.” He’d also scoured through the terms and conditions of his security deposit - surprisingly there was no section about boot prints left on your front door by random arch-nemesis seekers. “I’m a bit scared to ever open my door again.”

  
  
“Do you not have a little peephole?”

  
  
“Well, yeah, but that doesn’t stop someone from just kicking my door down.” Dan explains slowly, like he’s speaking to a child and he gets a soft kick in the shin for it - what is it with everyone and kicking him?

  
  
They’re walking out together now, something that always ends up happening on a Friday afternoon. There’s a routine to everything they do now, they’ve settled into it nicely and it’s honestly a bit of a comfort. Knowing means Dan can at least have some sort of plan, random meetings always lead to something stupid coming out of his mouth that he wants to reach out for in mid-air, shove the words back down inside him.

  
  
If it’s raining Phil always offers him a lift, he offers it today and Dan shakes his head. “Nah, but thanks. Promised i’d meet Chris and Greg in the library, think they’re staging an intervention in the hopes i’ll stop leaving everything till the last minute. If I go I might actually do some work. Going home just means by brain will shut off and demand naps, Mario kart and juice.”

  
  
“Baby.” Phil teases, voice light and filled with obvious amusement.

Dan knows Phil doesn’t mean it like that, he’s quite literally just calling Dan a baby. That doesn’t stop him from raising a hand to his cheek,conveniently covering up the patch on his jaw that will be betraying him something rotten right now.

  
  
“Whatever. You should be encouraging me to go and be a good work boy.” He bashes their hips together as they both fight to get out of the door first. “Next time i’ll say yes and force you to come get that coat, it’s an actual eyesore.”

  
  
Phil just shrugs, all big and exaggerated. “We’ll see.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey! hope you enjoyed this chapter. so sorry if I havent' replied to your comments! my ao3 keeps letting me reply to like 2 and then after that the reply box won't open no matter how many times i click it. but as always i appreciate them so much and plz still give me your thoughts on this chapter lmao. hopefulyl it'll fix itself soon and i can reply to more than like two a day before it decided to take away my replying rights.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok here's the ACTUAL friday update. 
> 
> Warnings: this entire chapter revolves very heavily around depression

The shadow is getting closer. 

It catches up to him on a Sunday night. 

He’s outrun it for two months. Now it was jumping on his back, all sharp angles and elbows digging into Dan’s skin, asking - _did you really think that you could escape me that easily?_

The heaviness comes first, dragging him down until all he can see is darkness. He wonders sometimes if that’s why him and the night sky don’t get along, because it’s too big a reminder of how he sometimes feels. 

Then it’s followed by the absolute lack of motivation to do anything. He has things due, he needs to read and he needs to update his publishers. He can’t do any of them, not when just breathing feels like the most difficult task on earth. The apathy is the worst part - everything he’d been excited to do suddenly feels laborious. Even watching the film he’d been excited for feels like a task. Opening his laptop, going onto netflix, finding it, pressing play - god, it’s all too much. 

  
He doesn’t attend Phil’s class on the Monday.  


His phone runs out of battery at some point - he thinks it might be on a Wednesday morning. He doesn’t bother to plug it it, instead settles into the complete silence. The vibrations of it against the wood of his bedside table were beginning to make him angry anyway.

The birds chirping outside make him want to stick his fingers in his ears. 

He was supposed to Skype Laura at some point, she was back in London and Dan was dead against finding a therapist in Manchester so they’d come to an agreement. He doesn’t do that even thought he knows he should have, even though he knows she could’ve helped in some way - but he’s at the point where he _wants_ to wallow in it. The point where he feels like he deserves it, and that’s when it becomes the most difficult to escape.

His brain is a jumble of thoughts, none of them good anymore. All - _you don’t deserve anything, you don’t deserve anyone, it’s no wonder everyone in your life has ran the second they got the chance_. He buries his head in his hands, hopes if he squeezes it hard enough that the bad parts of his brain will leak out of his ears.

  
  
He doesn’t attend Phil’s class on the Friday either. 

He’s missed two lectures in a the space of a week, after his record of turning up to every single one for two months - he was actually rather proud of himself, his law course had been a lot less attended.  


When he wakes up on Friday afternoon its to a quiet sound, something insistent and jarring that bounces around his skull and makes him want to scream. 

He realises after a couple of minutes that it’s his front door, hysterical laughter bubbles up in chest when he thinks - _who the fuck would want to see me?_  


He wants to ignore it, to roll over and go back to sleep until he feels less like the living dead, but there’s something that tells him it isn’t going to stop until it’s answered.

  
  
For a split second he fears the man from the other week has come back to make sure he definitely isn’t hiding this Derrick bloke away - but that would be stupid, wouldn’t it?

  
  
Has he ordered something? Completely forgotten? It doesn’t seems unlikely, his memory is full of holes when he feels like this. He can barely remember when he last stepped foot into his shower, if the greasiness clinging to his curls is anything to go by then it had been a while. 

Tuesday?

  
  
He shuffles though his flat, wishing he’d closed all the curtains on Sunday night,when this began to settle in and make a nice home for itself, because the light bursting in was too much for him to handle. How can everything out there still be so bright - so normal - when he felt like _this?_

_  
  
_Dan catches sight of himself briefly in the living room mirror, all dark circles and hollowed out cheeks - when had he last eaten?  


Wednesday? 

  
He hopes whoever is on the other side of the door is ready for this, for Dan and his stupid face and stupid head and his stupid fucking everything.

  
  
“Oh, well, fuck. You’re not Amazon.”

  
  
It’s Phil, because of course it’s Phil.

“No, but I am uber eats.” He lets out an odd little relieved sigh before his face settles into something sheepish, like he’s just realised what he’s doing. “I- er, god. I knew what building you lived in, obviously, dropped you off a lot, but then I remembered you saying how your door had a bootprint on it. I just sort of creepily stalked up and down hallways until I found it and - shit, that’s too much isn’t it? I should go and you keep this. It’s vegan - I don’t know if you’re still doing that or not.”

He’s got a pizza box tucked beneath his arm and Dan wants to tell him that’s the wrong way to hold it, that’s its going to fall down and become a mess of a thing. _This_ is why he hasn’t spoken to anyone since Sunday, he couldn’t bear to subject anyone to him when he was this pessimistic, nit-picking shit of a human being. His brain sees fault in everything - Phil was stood there with pizza and he was finding a reason to be upset about it. 

“Just come in, Phil.” Every syllable sounds monotone - an effort to get out.

  
  
“Oh. Really? I don’t- I can just leave you with the pizza.” He’s shuffling in the door way, giving Dan an out and it’s appreciated. He softens ever so slightly, takes a step forward so he can tug at Phil’s sleeve and drag him down the hall. 

“Just excuse the mess.”

  
  
There isn’t any, he’d not left his bedroom. No sign of life to be found outside of it.

  
  
He ends up in the kitchen, all his focus on a pile of cups in the sink. It’s the only evidence he’d done anything, that someone existed in this apartment. It was the remains of his desperate 3am water chugs(and alright, there was one sign of life). He twists the tap and starts to scrub at them furiously, suddenly desperate to just do something and stop his brain from thinking about how Phil is seeing him at his absolute lowest. 

He needs to clean, no matter how difficult it feels, needs to make sure his apartment is perfect enough to disguise his own problems. _Tidy house, tidy mind -_ all that shit.

  
  
“Hey.” There’s a hand on his shoulder, it’s warm and testing and only gives a squeeze once Dan relaxes back into it. “I’ll do that, you go eat.”

  
  
Dan doesn’t argue, can’t find the energy to. He just sidesteps Phil and refuses to meet his gaze, if they don’t look at each other then maybe he can pretend Phil can’t see him. “Thanks.”

  
  
He does as he’s told, sits right on the edge of his sofa, looking like he’s ready to bolt at any moment. The pizza taste like cardboard and - wet? Fuck. He’s crying, of course he’s fucking crying. They’re big, fat angry things that roll down his cheeks and force him to hold back sobs.

  
  
He can hear Phil in the background, the gentle sounds of water and glass sloshing about. He waits for it to finish, waits for Phil to see the state he’s in and leave. He hears footsteps and expects them to turn left down the hall, to be followed by the noise of a front door opening and then slamming shut.

  
  
The heavy blanket off the back of his couch is being draped around his shoulders - something he’d brought in a desperate attempt to make himself feel held.

  
  
The couch cushion beside him dips with the weight of another human being, he can barely breathe and he’s scared of the noise that’ll escape him if he does. Suddenly he’s being pulled down, down, down into a firm chest and a strong set of arms that wrap around him and do a better job than the blanket ever could. 

The angle is awkward, his hips stretch in a way that almost hurts but he doesn’t complain because at least he’s finally _feeling_ something.

  
  
“Do you need anything, Dan?”

  
  
“No.”

  
  
“Alright.”

  
  
And Phil doesn’t move, he holds Dan close and rubs small, comforting circles into his back. He doesn’t complain when Dan gives into it, when he goes limp and heavy and the sobs he’d been holding back rip out of him. He’s getting Phil’s shirt damp, can feel a patch forming against his cheek and Phil still doesn’t let go - if anything he holds him tighter.

  
  
Dan was long past blaming other people - Laura had told him once that just because toxic behaviours originate from your depression it doesn’t mean you don’t have to apologise for them. Just because he was hurting it didn’t mean he had the right to hurt others. Dan knew he’d driven people away by not realising that, when he’d been young and stubborn and wanted someone to just understand he didn’t _mean_ it.

Sometimes Dan didn’t have to do anything at all though, didn’t have to be nasty or - whatever. There were people who just couldn’t cope with it, the way Dan’s energy was completely zapped out of him, how he didn’t have much to say and wanted to do nothing but stay buried beneath his quilt. Dan didn’t blame them anymore - but sometimes he really, really wished they hadn’t ran, wished that, just once, someone had _stayed._

Phil only lets go when Dan does, and even then he seems reluctant to do so.

  
  
He doesn’t ask questions, he doesn’t demand explanations, he just smiles and then pulls a face at the messy looking pizza. “I held the box wrong, didn’t I?”

  
  
“A little bit.” Dan agrees, and how the fuck had he felt angry about that earlier? “Mario Kart?”

  
  
“Oh, you are so on. I am the absolute Mario Kart master.”

-

Phil isn’t.

  
  
He gets unbearably, adorably angry at the entire thing. Screams when Dan comes in first for the seventh time in a row, his own player coming in at a measly ninth.

  
  
It’s an hour in when he finally feels he can talk, “it’s like i’m drowning? Like- yeah. Drowning. It’s something that’s always in the back of my mind, but then sometimes it takes over my entire brain. Sometimes I know why it’s happening, why I feel like I do. Those are the times I can do something to make it go away. Those are the times where it feels like i’ve been pushed just below the surface of the ocean, but I can still see the light reflecting off it. I can break back through and breathe again if I just do what I need to do to fix it.” He doesn’t know why he’s spilling his guts out, why he’s rippedhis heart from is chest and is placing into Phil’s hand with a _\- you can take care of this, can’t you?_

_  
  
_“They’re just about bearable, something I can cope with because I know why it’s happening. Then there are other times where it’s sudden, comes out of nowhere and pushes me down with so much force that I swear i’m right at the bottom of the fucking sea.” His eyes are on the screen, and so are Phil’s. It’s as though he just knows that if he turns around Dan won’t be able to speak anymore.

  
  
“Erm- and, that’s how I felt this week - right down at the bottom. It makes me feel heavy and it takes away all of my energy, and I can’t see any fucking light because of how deep below the surface I am. It’s all I can do to stop myself from sinking deeper, never mind trying to swim up. That just seems impossible. Sometimes it feels as thought i’m making a bit of progress, that i’m getting closer to breaking out. Then something will happen and i’ll pushed down even deeper than before.One day i’m scared the water will never leave, it’ll push and push until I hitthe sand right at the bottom and that’ll be that.”

“Did you just red shell me?” Phil asks, but his voice has a hitch to it and there’s a shaky hand rubbing circles into his ankles and Dan knows he understands - or at least _wants_ to.

“Yeah, what about it?” And it feels alarmingly right for Phil to be sat here, to be bundled up in the corner of his couch with a game controller in his- “Oi, oi, oi. Get that out of your mouth!”

  
  
“It wasn’t!” Phil protests, and it’s said with such sincerity that if Dan hadn’t seen it with his own eyes he might’ve just believed him.

  
  
“Mate, I can see the teeth marks from here.” And for the first time in five days some of the water leaves Dan’s lungs.

  
  
Phil shakes his head so bloody quickly that Dan’s surprised they don’t end up in A&E for a severe case of whiplash. “They were here before you gave it to me.”

  
  
“Oh, shutup, idiot.”

“No, never. I’m done this is over. I am sick of losing, can’t believe you let me sit there and call my self the master. Embarrassing. We’re going to do something else, where’s your laptop?” 

-

He’s watching a young Phil mouth along to the words toxic, a small smirk on his lips that says - i’m _doing_ it for some of you, aren’t I?

“Jesus Christ, put it on pornhub or put it nowhere at all.” Dan is a little transfixed by it, puts it in his bookmarks whilst Phil isn’t looking. “Hope no one else has ever found this.”

  
  
“It’s art, put it in the _MoMA_ or nowhere at all - is what I think you mean. And they have, don’t wanna talk about it.” Dan can tell he’s at least a little bit embarrassed by it all, voice gone up in pitch by half an octave. That meant _something -_ that he was putting himself through something unpleasant just to try and make Dan feel better.  


“Thanks for coming, Phil. I didn’t realise how hungry I was.” But it was more than that, and he thinks Phil knows it.

  
“Don’t mention it, Danny Howell.” 

“Oh, absolutely not. We’re not using that.”

\- 

Phil stays until the sky outside fades, until the moon is shining in big and bright through Dan’s window - like it knows he needs the light now.

  
  
“I should probably go, I have papers to mark all weekend.” His faces scrunches up, and Dan flicks him on the nose.

  
  
“All part of the profession, Phil, stop complaining when you know what you signed up for.” A part of him want to say _stay._ But he knows that’ll ruin it all. Phil had come here today and he’d stayed with Dan and held him and not complained and not tried to make Dan explain. He’d sat patiently and hadn’t expected a thing. He hadn’t questioned Dan after his big speech, he’d just listened and then made Dan feel comfortable with a stupid red shell. 

Everyone always had questions, always wanted to figure it out, always wanted to _fix_ him or tell him he couldn’t really feel like that with the life he had. Phil had just accepted every word without hesitation, and Dan was reminded of what he’d said in the car a few weeks back. Did Phil understand because he’d been through something similar, because people looked at him and thought - _you,_ really?

“I wanted to be a weather man, that would’ve had no marking.” Phil grumbles from the doorway between his hall and living room, he’s been there for about five minutes now just faffing about. Dan thinks that if there was a Guinness world record for slowest man to put on a coat, Phil would’ve won the title. 

Phil was hovering like he didn’t want to leave, but knew he had to. 

It looks like he’s having an internal debate with himself - at the last minute he seems to make up his mind, crouches down in front of Dan who was still sprawled out on the sofa with his laptop balanced on his stomach. Dan, for the first time tonight, looks him in the eye - they’ll never not catch him off guard - now they hold a startling amount of affection, and if Dan hadn’t used up all his tears earlier on he might’ve cried again.

  
  
“You can tell me to piss off if this it too much, ok? Ok. But could you maybe like just text me in future? Not a full on conversation just a word, a sentence, that means you’re ok. It can literally be like _Horse Secrets._ ” Dan realises then just how much he’s made Phil worry, it’s been five days without anything whatsoever from Dan’s side. He should’ve realised it hours ago, you didn’t search through 27 floors of an apartment building for a boot-print on a door if you _weren’t_ worried. “I just don’t want to come barging in like this again, if you don’t want me here.”

  
  
The relief in his voice when Dan first opened the door makes sense now. Phil was an anxious over-thinker, probably sat at home assuming the worst. 

“I want you here.” Dan says, without preamble - because it’s true, it’s always going to be true. “Can I use the horse emoji instead of the word horse?” Dan asks.

  
  
He repeatedly taps on his chin, deliberating for a few moments. “After much thought I have decided that yes, you may.” 

Phil isn’t running away, in fact he’s running into Dan with such force that it knocks a little more of the water out.

  
  
“Then we have a deal.”  
  
-  
  
It’s only after Phil’s been gone for half an hour that Dan realises _that_ fucking coat is still hung up in his hallway. 

Two months of staring at the _Michelin Man._

Two months of Phil. 

How much longer could it go on before Dan fell apart at the seams? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thankyou for reading, and despite the subject i hope you enjoyed it! just to say this was written with my own experience of depression in mind, i know everyone will experience it in different ways so please don't think i'm saying 'this is what depression is >:(' cos i know people will not feel things like me! i just wanted to write it in a way that felt authentic to me. 
> 
> I know i'm getting chapters out super quick but i can't help it cos i am having a fun time creating a world and its' a distraction from my own brain rn! they'll likely slow down to 1 update a week once i go back to work, just to let you know. also i still can't reply to like more than 2 comments a day cos ao3 hates me so if i haven't replied, that's still why! I very much appreciate them all, ty ty<3
> 
> follow me on fictropes.tumblr.com if ya want. (also i'm somehow posting the below comment to every new chapter an di have no idea how to get rid of it hgrewdfgbnfmgf)


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome 2 my upload schedule of, apparently, every 2-3 days.

There’s a definite shift after that. 

  
  
The routine that had initially kept them safe - kept them from saying too much - slips away and becomes something more spontaneous. It becomes something that involves too many words, too much time spent together. Daily lunches become a regular occurrence, both of them holed up in Phil’s office complaining about the shitty canteen food.

They end up in Dan’s apartment at least once a week, usually on a Saturday, screaming at video games and wondering how they’d ever coped with out each other.

He’s sat in here now, hunched over his laptop at Dan’s breakfast bar, looking for all the world like he belongs there. “I think,” he breathes out heavily through his nose, “that this guy is trying to argue that Shakespeare is still alive.”

  
  
“You’re kidding.” It’s enough to make Dan stand up and leave the comfy spot he’s made for himself on the sofa, wearing his blanket like a cape as he joins Phil in the kitchen.

  
  
“No, actually. I think he genuinely believes there are immortal people in the world and Shakespeare is one of them.” He takes his glasses off, declares “I no longer wish to see.”

The glasses had caught Dan entirely off guard the first time. He’d turned up one Saturday with them on, explaining how he’d accidentally left his new packet of contacts in his desk drawer at work. Dan had stuttered and stumbled over his words in the doorway, eventually spat outan actual sentence - _they suit you_ \- before legging it down his own hall and leaving Phil to come in by himself.

“That’s some big galaxy brain level of thinking. Are you sure it actually isn’t Greg?” He muses, peering over his shoulder. They’re too close again, Dan’s practically glued to Phil’s back as his eyes greedily take in something that’s somehow worse than his own work.

“Dan, this is the essay of a third year. This is like _the_ essay, not even an essay, it’s part of his actual dissertation. The biggest part of his mark. I’m going to have to meet with him, I don’t know how to tell him to scrap it, like, who am I to tell him immortal people don’t exist? Oh my god.”

  
  
“Does he mean it in a metaphorical way, maybe? Like people are still writing things based on his works, so it’s like he’s still alive today?” Dan asks, then his eyes skim over a certain line, “Ok, nope. He is literally arguing that the actual Shakespeare is still alive. Cool. Perfectly normal.”

  
  
“Oh, what an actual genius!” Dan can’t see Phil’s face but knows there’s that big, tongue out smile plastered on it. He hates that he can just tell these things now- hates that he knows him more than he’s ever known anyone in his life.“I can tell him that, or at least point him in that direction. The whole metaphor thing makes sense.”  


Phil slams his laptop lid shut, deciding he’s done with that particular problem because Dan had just perfectly solved it for him. He turns in his seat with a swivel and they’re so fucking close, Dan can see all three colours of his eyes and if one of them leant in a centimetre they’d be - Phil slides out of the chair sideways. 

“I should go, it’s getting late and I have -“

“Stuff to plan for Monday, I know.” Dan smiles, but there’s a certain edge to it that only Phil could pick up on. 

It was always the same line whenever something happened that was too much - _stuff to plan._

_-_

“It’d be like dating your boss, wouldn’t it?” It’s the first thing out of her mouth, unsurprisingly. She’s been their biggest cheerleader ever since she’d seen them through a Starbucks window.

“Hi, Chris. You look nice today, how was your weekend? It’s good to see you, did I mention you look particularly lovely?”

“Yeah, yeah. Yellow looks immaculate on black people now stop telling me things I already know in a bid to distract me. I see your game. We’re talking about your rom-com life, not how great I look.” She gives him a sharp-edged look - Dan already knows he’s lost. He almost always does.

  
  
“Why am I always the subject of conversation?” He whines, puffing out his cheeks. It wasn’t fair, they had interesting lives, too. Stuff worth talking about. They always picked on him, though. From his dreamy expression when Phil walked past, to how quickly his scrabbled for his phone when it vibrated. Right now he was lucky it was just Chris, put her together with Greg and it became an all out roast Dan session.

“Because Greg is married, i’m living my best single life and have zero interest in anyone even looking at me. You’re the one with all the fun going on.” She hasn’t even attempted to act like she’s here to work, her bag lays discarded on the floor with her laptop still nicely nestled inside.

  
  
“Fun? Do you think i’m an actual masochist.”

  
  
“To much info, don’t need to know what you imagine you and Phil getting up to in the bedroom. Back to my original - valid - point. It would be like dating your boss.” She isn’t letting it drop and Dan knows it’s easier to let her just speak.

  
  
He doesn’t even go red anymore at her comments anymore, immune to it. “Go on, tell me how. The floor is yours.” He leans back in his chair, getting ready for her to stand up. She always does this, if she has a point to make, she’ll stand and act like she’s giving an actual presentation as opposed to just bullying Dan.

  
  
“Ok.” She clears her throat, Dan laughs at that. They work together so well because they’re both as dramatic as each other.

  
  
“Here’s my most logical argument for you to get your head out of your arse yet. I was thinking, when I saw you in that coffee shop I just saw you was like a regular couple, right? I didn’t think oh my god, he’s sitting with his student.”

“Right.” Dan is secretly a little bit soothed by that, doesn’t let on because it’d just give her a big head.

  
  
“And I’d assume anyone else would think the same, regular couple. We’re acting like homophobes don’t exist in this scenario, just so you’re aware. Doesn’t matter, i’d beat them all with a stick for you anyway.” She lets out huge breath, nods her head and continues once Dan has given her a fond eye roll.

  
  
“You’re both basically the same age, right? It’s not like you’re eighteen and it’s creepy and, honestly, I don’t think that PDFwas made with your scenario in mind. I think it’d be like dating your boss. In the real world that’s perfectly fine, as long as you don’t get any special treatment or favoured in the workplace. I’ve asked Greg, and I know Phil gave you a 2:2 for your last essay. If that’s special treatment then, well, dread to think what he’d have given you otherwise.”

And it sort of makes sense, Dan can see where’s she’s coming from. Phil is sensible with him in lectures, he’s the same joke-y person with all of his students He’s never given Dan anything that he hasn’t openly offered to everyone else on the course. He definitely doesn’t mark Dan’s work with any favouritism in mind - he’d had a little bit of strop over that 2:2.

  
“You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?” She gives a self-satisfied grin before finally collapsing back down into her seat, looking like she’s won some sort of secret war.  


  
“Yeah. I guess I can see it like that.” Dan admits, refusing to look up to see how her eyes sparkle with the knowledge that she is - as always - right.

  
  
“Right? You’re both grown adults, Dan, and I say this all with complete love. I know you’re very much in your head about it, and I probably would be too if I were actually in your scenario. But as an outsider I feel it’s very much my duty to tell you it’s not bad.” She’s gone all sincere now, patting Dan’s thigh and forcing him to look up. “I’ve seen you two together, he looks at just the way you look at him. And you know how you look at him.”

  
  
“But what if it is bad?” Dan asks quietly. “What if everyone thinks it’s fucked.”

  
  
“Daniel. I am telling you now that no one would look at you two together at you and think that, ok? I don’t want you to be miserable because of what you think other people will think. I promise you it’s not as weird as you’re making it out to be. It’s sort of sweet, really. Don’t tell Greg I said that, he’ll think i’m going soft.” She sounds like she means it all, not saying it just to comfort Dan - to get him to stop moping.

“I know that it’s not the same as if I were coming in a first year at eighteen, I _know_ that. It just feels weird, you know? Like it could happen and it’d be fine, but there’s an invisible barrier that makes it seem impossible right now.” And that’s all it is, like both and Phil are both trapped on either side of something that’s hard to cross.

“As long as you go about it properly, you tell the relevant people that you’re in relationship and fix whatever needs fixing, then I don’t see a problem. I highly doubt anyone would blame Phil for falling for his grown _adult_ author student, that he spends more time outside of the classroom with than in. It’s just like you met at work, a boss would still have a bit of power over you, you know? If you’re thinking about the power imbalance aspect, which you _are_. It’s the same thing, and no one ever gives a shit.”  


_No one ever gives a shit._

-

He heads to meet Phil after his last lecture of the day, everything Chris had said earlier swirling around in his brain. It _has_ forced Dan to think about it in a different light. He imagines seeing him and Phil from the outside, rather than an active participant, and he already knows that he would think of it as he does any other normal, adult relationship. He might even be a little be jealous about seeing two people who seem so happy - so comfortable - together. 

  
  
So why can’t he seem to get past it? Why can’t both of them? Why is there still something there holding them back? 

Three months of dancing around each other and they still can’t just give in.  


“I’m just saying, you eat so much sugar on top of all the caffeine. Like I don’t get how you sleep, do you sleep?” They end up in Starbucks about twice a week, Phil always ordering cake and the sugariest drink available on the menu.

  
  
“No, i’m a vampire. I don’t need sleep, it’s for the weak.” He’s sipping something very pink through a straw, it looks like a bit of a struggle. The paper isn’t handling it very well and Dan, thinking ahead, decides to buy him something a bit easier for Christmas; Metal straws are the future after all.

  
  
“I don’t think vampires need coffee either.” He’s got something a bit more tame, something black and bitter that makes his face screw up every time he takes a sip. Maybe he should take a page out of Phil’s book and spend his money on something he’ll actually enjoy, sugar coma or not.

  
  
“Whatever.” And it begins there, Phil makes the first move. They’ve developed a bit of a competition, something that started around a month ago. Phil had accidentally undone Dan’s shoelace beneath the table whilst they played footsie. It had grown into a full on thing, there was a sheet of paper acting as a scoreboard that was currently stuck on Dan’s fridge.

  
  
The game was relatively simple, whoever could undo the others shoelace just using their feet first was the winner, and whoever got to 10 first won and the other had to foot the bill for Starbucks for the entire month. Dan has a solid 7-4 lead right now.

  
  
A couple of weeks back he’d failed to mention his victory and Phil had very nearly gone flying into a strangers lap. Dan had managed to catch him by his backpack strap, pull him upright with a laugh so loud - so obviously happy - that Phil failed to stay mad at him for longer than five seconds.

  
  
“Phil, hate to tell you this but my shoes have got zips on them today. You can try all you like but if you start this then i’m obviously going to win.” He warns, because he’s fair like that.

  
  
“No! That’s so crap, you’re crap.” Phil huffs, crossing his arms over his chest like it’s a genuinely world ending revelation. “You should always keep a spare pair of shoes in your bag.”

  
  
“Yeah, no. I’m not about to start changing my shoes in the middle of a Starbucks just so I can kick you underneath the table. I’d look deranged.” He can still feel Phil trying - just to check Dan isn’t lying. It makes him smile, and then retaliate. “Be careful, Phil. One pull now and i’ll only be two off of free coffee for a month.”

  
  
“Fine, fine. I surrender, but I still think you’re crap.” 

  
  
It’s no longer a safe, established routine but it’s still all so easy.

“Shake on it. No more trying to rip of my zips.” Dan demands, they’re his favourite shoes and Phil has big clumsy feet. He wouldn’t put it past him to somehow break them clean off.  


Phil raises an eyebrow, but then Dan holds out a hand because he’s deadly serious.

They shake on it.

‘'Do you moisturise? They are so soft, what the fuck.” He’s still reeling from what had essentially been two seconds of holding Phil’s hand, he feels increasingly like a Victorian maiden these days.  


  
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  
  
“What’s that supposed to mean? Do you, like, wash your hands with your own come?”

  
  
“Dan!” Phil squawks, absolutely indigent. Like he hadn’t been the one to make it weird in the first place.

  
  
“Didn’t hear a no.”

  
  
“No, I use Nivea. You horrible boy.”

-

The next event Phil brings him along to is somehow fancier than the last, it requires a bit more communication and by the end of the night Dan is floating on air. 

_  
“Oh, what a lovely couple.”_

_"Finally found yourself a tall boyfriend, Phil.”_  


_“God, don’t you both look so happy together! I feel like I should base my next book your smiling faces.”_

_  
  
“Oh thank god, that last one had been no good for you.”_

_  
  
“Do you have matching ties? Gag. If you weren’t so pretty together i’d be sick.”_

Five.

A whole five people had looked at them and seen a couple. No one in there had looked at them and thought anything was off. It was readily accepted by a room of professionals, people Phil worked with.

Chris’s words are louder than ever, begging him to just do _something._

Phil hadn’t disputed a single one of them, had just given a polite smile and dragged Dan along to the next person who had wanted to speak.

  
  
“We are very pretty together.” Dan giggles, cheeks flushed and his tie loose as he sits in the passenger seat of Phil’s car; The free bar had been his best-friend tonight.

“Shush. I’m trying to concentrate.” The rain was lashing down, steaming up the windows and making Phil squint even behind his glasses.

  
  
“Yeah, but, everyone in there thought we were a couple. Isn’t that weird? Like so many people. We must just look like a couple, like we go together.”

  
  
“ _Thought_.” Phil stresses, it makes Dan pout and stare moodily out of the window. He can’t see a thing, he just likes the feeling of being the main character in a movie. He wants more from Phil, wants him to turn around and say - _well, yeah, that’s because we could be a couple._

But Phil isn’t drunk and this isn’t the time.

“You ok getting up?” Oh. He’s been staring moodily for a while, the shock of his apartment building suddenly being there makes him blink several times in quick succession, just to check he wasn’t hallucinating it.

  
  
“Yeah, you gonna come and get your coat? Still there, still upsets me.” He knows the answer already.  


“I should go, it’s getting late and I have -“ Phil starts. 

  
  
“Stuff to plan for Monday.” Dan doesn’t smile this time, just gently closes the car door behind him and watches as Phil drives away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, hope you enjoyed! and please leave a comment if u did because i love 2 receive that validation. (and big thanku to all my regular commenters, much joy in knowing you all still like the story<3


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a phil pov! 
> 
> (all mistakes are my own)

“What’s with the glum face, love?” Phil’s ended up at his parents for reading week, thinking maybe the fresh air would sort out all of his problems.

  
  
His _one_ big problem.

  
  
Dan had seemed a bit disappointed by it all, like he’d already made plans for Mario kart and Pizza. That was the issue, though, that’s why he’s sat in his parents kitchen on his third cup of coffee before 9am. 

“Nothing, mum. Just tired. Probably jet-lag, or something.” Phil spouts off, taking a gulp even though it’s still far too hot. It burns his throat on the way down, grounds him in the weirdest way.

  
  
“Phil, the flight to get here is an hour long. If you’re going to lie at least put some effort into it.” She teases, in the way only a mum can.

  
  
“I fell out of the plane halfway and had to swim to get here.”

  
  
“Mhm, that’s a little bit more creative at least.” She presses the back of her hand to his forehead, “not hot, not ill. Something else, then.”

  
  
“It’s just something all stupid and complicated.” He sighs, then immediately relents even though he knows she would’ve left him alone if he’d simply asked. 

Maybe speaking it out with someone he trusts 100% to tell him the truth would help. It’s all been bottled up inside his own head for so long that he’s probably jumbled it all up into something else. 

“I’m all ears, and all cake.” She sits on the opposite side of the table with kind eyes and a smile that always makes him feel loved. “Just remember your father will want some of it later, don’t go picking all the good stuff off the top.” She warns, because she knows his every quirk by now. Knows he’d happily pick off every chocolate star, jam every marshmallow into his mouth and leave behind a half iced mess of a cake. 

She also _knows_ he’s fundamentally a good person. 

“So at the beginning of term -“  


-  
  
He was fucked the second Dan walked in. He’d been this big, ball of nervous energy filled with self-depreciation and - god - he had _dimples_.

  
  
Dan quite literally fell into Phil’s life, tripped into his heart. 

Initially he’d thought Dan was his new TA, he’d been promised one last year to help out with the extra workload of being a tutor as well as a lecturer. That could work, you could find your TA attractive. 

His dreams shattered and fell to the ground around his feet when Dan introduced himself as a student, and not just a student but someone who’s work Phil had admired for a while now. 

The first time Dan left Phil _felt_ it, a tiny little tug like they were suddenly connected by a string, and it was asking - _you’ve finally met, do you think i’m going to let you walk away that easy?_

Coffee shops, lecture theatres, Phil’s car, events that he didn’t want to go to alone. Dan was very much in his life and Phil couldn’t have stopped even if he’d wanted to. _  
_

He was the most beautiful man Phil had ever seen, was caught off guard every-time they met because he’d always find something new to fawn over. The light dusting of freckles, the way one curl would sometimes sit perfectly on his head, how big his hands were - the second he got over one thing he found another. 

Sometimes Dan would gaze at him like he felt the same, like he couldn’t quite believe what Phil looked like. 

He could potentially deal with surface level attraction, just another crush. Then Dan spoke, and he was so expressive, so passionate and Phil _knew_ it was more than that.

  
  
The more was trouble. 

He’d gotten over Dan being The Daniel Howell quite a while ago, it hadn’t been some fan infatuation that potentially had the chance to wearoff the minute you found out someone you admired was actually a bit of a dick. 

  
Dan was real, he was human and he was atrocious at hiding anything. He wore every little emotion on his face, Phil decided it was easier to tease him about that rather than confront just what he looked like when they spoke.

  
  
As long as emotions never got spoken out-loud then Phil could just pretend he was just imagining how Dan’s eyes lit up around him. 

If Phil had met him in any other way, he would’ve gone for it. He would’ve accepted all the invitations to go up to Dan’s apartment, wouldn’t have fled every time they got a little too close.

  
  
He’d checked the PDF one month into term, pouring over it at 4am when he couldn’t sleep because all he could think about was Dan’s loud laugh, his stupid little smirk whenever Phil tripped up and said something that veered on being inappropriate.

  
  
He could almost believe it wasn’t written with his situation in mind, that this was more to avoid huge age gaps and to deter those with questionable morals. It still didn’t stop his mind from saying no - no this can’t happen because he's your student.

  
  
He promised then to keep a little bit of distance, or at least try to.

  
  
But Dan still sat right up front in lectures when every other person scrambled to the back, encouraged him with dimpled smiles, stared at him with those big doe eyes and Phil was only human.

  
  
It didn’t go well, he still gave Dan lifts home and they still spent too long speaking when they both should’ve been elsewhere. They hovered around each other, scared to stray too far incase the string snapped.

  
  
It was still just enough to Phil to handle, though. He was just about coping.

  
  
Then Dan didn’t turn up on the Monday, then the Friday. Stayed radio silent through texts when Phil knew he lived with his phone glued to his hand. 

He knew he was wearing his heart on his sleeve when he went through an entire apartment building looking for a specific mark on a specific door - when Dan answered surely he’d just _know._

Phil’s heart had broken that day, holding a sobbing Dan in his arms and listening to him speak about just how awful he felt. He’d wanted to bundle him up in a sea of blankets, hide him away from anyone who could ever do him any wrong.

  
  
He could no longer keep the safely devised distance, not when he felt he could help Dan in swimming back up to the surface.

  
  
That day had changed everything and Phil wouldn’t have had it any other way - no matter how much it _hurt._

Before he’d met Dan Phil would’ve told you he disliked a lot of things. All black outfits. Too loud laughter, the sort that went straight through you. Driving home in the rain. Spending time in places with a free bar. Now he liked them all. He liked how Dan looked in black, how freely he laughed, how if it was raining it meant his time with Dan went on for a few more minutes and free bars meant Dan got a little bit tipsy and that patch on his cheeked turned rosy. 

What he liked the most was Dan. He’d never felt so comfortable so quickly with another person before. He could say whatever weird thing he wanted and Dan would either respond with something just as weird, or give him a fond little eye roll.

  
  
He’d broken down many barriers up to now, had started spending weekends at his place playing Mario kart and getting screamed at when he once again put the control in his mouth.

  
  
They texted almost non-stop.

  
  
They called each other just because.

Played the worlds more ridiculous game beneath the tables of Manchesters many Starbucks.

Phil thought about him a lot - too much. 

  
  
There were so many broken barriers, but the most important once still remained up.

  
  
He slipped away if Dan mentioned anything remotely romantic, took a step back if they were ever stood too close. His heart and his mind were having a huge all out war and he didn’t know which one to let win. 

Would he be in the wrong? Would people care? Was it a moral grey area that no one really had any idea about - including Phil?

  
  
So many people at that last literary event had just assumed, they’d looked at the both and thought - _oh they must be together._

  
The last conversation in the car had obviously hurt Dan’s feelings, that’d been when he’d made up his mind to flee for the week.  


-

What a pickle.” She’s tapping her nails on the table, a steady rhythm that calms Phil’s heart. He feels as thought he’s just ran a marathon. “Do you want my opinion? Or did you just need to vent?”

  
  
“I think I _need_ your opinion, mum.” He feels like a child again, desperately needing her guidance before he does anything.

  
  
“I think you like him an awful lot, more than i’ve ever known you to like anybody before.” She stops tapping, instead reaches out to cover Phil’s hand with her own, gives it a small squeeze. He thinks back to that stupid handshake a couple weeks back, how right it had felt for them to just be touching. 

“And I think the fact you’re even thinking about this so bloody much means you’re a good person, means you’re _not_ the person you think you’d be if you went for it. I know your brain, I know how much you overthink everything and it’s sometimes a bit of detriment, isn’t it? You miss out because you think of what could go wrong rather than what could go right.” Her voice is soft and Phil knows she isn’t trying to be cruel, not at all, she’s just trying to make him _realise._

_  
_  
“Maybe.” Phil sighs, rubbing at his eyes until he see stars. This is all too stressful a thing for nine am on a Sunday morning. “I don’t know, it’s just weird. And I never thought i’d be here, you know? Because in my mind all my students were always going to be like a good ten or more years younger than me. And that’s something i’d never do, would never want. I wasn’t expecting him, he caught me off guard.”

  
  
“That downloaded file thingy you were telling me about, I bet if you questioned them on why they made it they’d tell you it was to stop older people from praying on vulnerable teenagers - not to stop two grown adults.” It’s what he’s wanted to hear from the second he’d opened his mouth, confirmation that he wasn’t doing something immoral.

  
  
“I know, I think. I know someone who is dating a student, they’re like both in their forties. They met before, though, so I don’t know how to compare it to this. Like is my situation different because i’ve met Dan _now_.” There are too many what ifs that always stop him, always make the same sentence leave his mouth whenever he and Dan seem to be moving to a different place - _plans to finish for Monday._

“I don’t think so, I think you just happened to meet as two grown men and like each other. Nothing wrong with that. And knowing how seriously you take your job I very highly doubt you’re giving him any special treatment. You haven’t even done anything and you’re already worrying this much, just means you’re taking it seriously. That’s not a bad thing at all.” All of her words feel like a warm hug, squeezing him tighter and tighter with every sentence.

  
  
“I gave him a 2:2 once, should’ve seen his face. It was so adorable, I wanted to squeeze his cheeks and tell him to bloody apply himself for once, he’s so smart and he could so well - but I don’t think it’s for him. I think he doesn’t like writing about other people, I think he wants to do his own thing.” Phil had wanted to suggest he switch over to creative writing, give himself the freedom to create rather than just critique. Then he’d chickened out, didn’t want it to come across like he was getting Dan to move just so they could be _something_. 

“See. No unfair treatment. It’s sort of like dating a boss, I suppose. No one ever bats an eyelash at that. Just make sure it goes through HR, and bobs your uncle.” 

“What if i’ve read it wrong?”

  
  
“Don’t insult yourself by acting like an idiot.” And that’s the harsh mum love he needs in his life right now. “He sat in your car trying to get you to confirm that you’d make a nice looking couple, you silly boy.”

  
  
“Oh my god, that _is_ what he was doing.” Phil groans, dropping his head to the table with a _thunk._ “Stop insulting me whilst i’m going through all this turmoil.”

  
  
“Just trying to make you see sense, love.”

  
  
“But, skipping ahead, if people ask where we met what am I supposed to say?”

  
  
“Say you met at university.”

  
  
“ _Oh_ , right.” It leaves him a little bit dumbfounded, a simple answer that’d be staring him in the face for who knows how long. “I can see the look you’re giving me even though I can’t actually see you.” 

“What scares you more, Phil? Not trying this, seeing him graduate and go back to London after three years - knowing something magical could’ve happened. Or what a couple of your colleagues would _maybe_ think about you? Colleagues i’ve never actually heard you ever speak about. I bet if you explained it to any of them they wouldn’t see it how you’re seeing it.” She’s cleaning up now, Phil can hear her picking up plates and cups like this is just a perfectly normal day, like she hasn’t just said something that’s turned Phil’s entire way of thinking upside down.

  
  
“You’re right, you’re always bloody right. Is that just a mum thing?” He pokes out his tongue, because if he feels like a child again he might as well act like one.

  
  
“I can’t tell you what to do - wouldn’t dream of it. I’m just here to tell you what I think, and I think you’d be a fool not to try. Especially when it’s someone who makes you look off into the distance all dreamily when you talk about a handshake.” She giggles, the sound hugging Phil’s heart a little tighter. 

His phone goes off and he knows who it is without even looking.

  
  
oi oi oi, are you back yet? dying, alone etc. it’s Dan, btw (fyi) just incase you forgot about me

  
  
Phil smiles, it’s stupid and obvious and his mum picks up on it in a second.

  
  
“If he makes you smile like that, well, I think you owe it to your own happiness to try.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i thought we needed to know what Phil was thinking about it all, peer into that big brain. I always struggle with how to write phil, what a complex dude! so sorry if that chapter is a bit weird, but it is a one off and we're back with Dan till the end. I feel like he needed a chris-esque moment with someone he trusted u know. 
> 
> again plz comment anything u liked, hated, etc etc. And to all my frequent commenters thanku so much u really encourage me to write this i've had wips in the past where do one said anything and honestly i feel like u can only write for yourself for so long! so really your comments make me WANT to write this<3.


	9. Chapter 9

“Do you miss your green room?” Dan asks. They’ve been on the phone for three hours now. Talking followed by long stretches of silence, just them breathing, the sound of Phil’s pen scribbling away as he marks papers, Dan’s too loud keyboard. It was all very comfortable.

“Just how many videos of mine have you watched?” He seems to deem this part of the conversation important enough to stop grading, Dan hears the pen fall down onto a table.

There has been a lot of these calls this past week, Phil had mentioned a couple of days ago that his mum had said something about how he may as well have bought Dan along with him. It’d made Dan’s chest do funny things.

  
  
“You’re the one who showed me, you can hardly blame me for starting from the top and working my way through.” The toxic video had a few more views than the rest, Dan was, apparently, one of the people Phil was _doing_ it for.

  
“You’d have a field day if I ever showed you all the ones I have unlisted - or privated.” He murmurs, voice sounding far away and it wasn’t just the distance. He’s thinking about something, Dan wants to ask what. 

Is he thinking about me? Us?

  
“Well now you have to show me them, you can’t just dangle them in front of me on a stick.” He rolls over onto his stomach, buries his face into his pillow. “Please? I’ll be good, i’ll actually spend the rest of this week doing work.” He’s all muffled but Phil understands him somehow.

  
  
“Daniel Howell, it’s a Saturday night. You have one day left. I don’t think that’s very deserving of seeing my mostembarrassing moments.” Dan can hear him shuffling about, the marking abandoned in favour of climbing beneath bed covers.

  
  
“Whatever. I’ll just hack your youtube, bet your password is like Ilovebuffy123.”

  
  
“It’s actually Ilovebuffy1234. If you’re going to be a smart arse at least get it right.” And he can imagine Phil shaking his head, see the smirk he’ll wear when Dan inevitably bashes their shoulders together.

“I’m not being a smart arse, remember you gave me a 2:2.” He’s not bitter, just likes the stupid little whine Phil let’s out whenever Dan reminds him.

  
  
“I had to! You used like three references, and I could follow two of them back to Wikipedia.”

  
  
“Wikipedia is valid.” Dan argues, closing his laptop and crawling beneath his own sheets. If he closes his eyes he can almost believe they’re the same room, curled up next to each other.

  
  
“It is, I agree, but unfortunately every other single person does not.” Phil shrugs, Dan can hear it. “Anyway, stop complaining. You and I both know it was done three hours before it was due, you’re lucky you got even that.”

  
  
“Are you calling me very clever?”

  
  
“Odd twist, but whatever helps you sleep at night.”

  
  
“You help me sleep at night.” Dan says, not realising what he’s just said, only paying attention once the words are actually out of his mouth. “I mean-“

“Dan.” Phil whispers, somehow with so much authority it stops Dan from talking. “I get it.”

  
  
They’d been doing these calls every night for the past week, often only hanging up once the other person has fallen asleep. Despite Dan’s night owl tendencies he was often the first to go - Phil had once recorded him snoring.

  
  
It helped in a way Dan couldn’t explain, just the thought Phil was far yet close all at the same time.

  
  
“Ok.” He sounds small, clears his throat and tries to recover before he says something else that is just a little too much. “I’ve spent so much time with Greg this week i’m like lowkey considering buying a pair of yellow jeans.”

  
  
“I think i’d have a heart attack if you ever did that, the shock of it would be too much.” Phil goes with it, he always does. “You’ll have to send me a warning text so I can prepare.” He yawns, and it immediately sets Dan off.  


  
“Fucking hell, are we just going to yawn back and forth until one of us dies? Stop it.”

  
  
“You stop it! You copied me first.” Dan hears him take a deep breath, then he stops breathing all together.

  
  
“I can see your hamster face in my mind right now.” 

  
  
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing 

Then a sudden rush of air that makes Dan jump.  


  
“How long was that?”

  
  
“I don’t know, like twenty seconds?”

  
  
“Rubbish. Movies are not realistic. Once I counted someone holding their breath for two minutes.” He sounds genuinely put out by his efforts, like he’d been practising to appear in a future Jaws movie and he just knew he wouldn'tcut it - he sucks in again.

  
  
“Idiot. Stop it. Going to make yourself feel sick.” Everything his says sounds so unbearably fond, seeping into his every word without permission. Phil has to hear it, has to have caught on by now.

“Fine. I’m just saying they’re setting unrealistic expectations.” Phil breathes back out, loud and right down Dan’s ear like some ASMR he definitely hadn’t been asking for.

  
  
“Mhm.”

  
  
“Yeah.”

  
  
“Cool.”

  
  
“Your mum.”

  
  
“You’re such a child. You’re back in the morning, right? Should I order some welcome back pizza?” Dan just wants to see him the second he lands, a week without Phil actually feels like a year.

  
  
“Na, can’t, got a date-“ Dan’s heart drops into his arse, “with all the food that actually has a date in my fridge. As an adult i’ve decided I have to actually cook the food I buy instead of just letting in live in my fridge for a while.”

  
  
“What if you start that from next week? Like you can’t start something new on a Sunday.” Dan points out, everything new had to start on a Monday. “That’s like the law, I learnt it before I dropped out of my law course.”  


“Oh, well, I don’t want to get arrested. One condition, it’s not vegan. I think the cheese somehow makes me sicker than regular cheese.”

“Deal.”

Dan is the first to fall asleep again.  


-  


  
“Fuck.”

  
  
“I agree, maybe I should’ve gone with the vegan cheese.”

  
  
They’re like two beached whales on Dan’s sofa, he desperately wants to undo his jeans button but doesn’t now how appropriate that’d be.

  
  
“I think we live here now.” He rolls dramatically into Phil’s side, small pathetic noises escaping him as he pets his own tummy. His pizza eyes (specifically) were always bigger than his belly. “We have cookies to eat yet.”

  
  
“Oh, that’s fine. I have a separate stomach for desserts, it’s like magic. I thank my mum every day that I was born with it.” He bumps Dan off him as leans forwards and just like that he’s eating again.

  
  
“That’s not normal, Phil. You’re going to look like that kid out of willy Wonka, apart from the whole turning purple thing.” He tucks himself neatly back into Phil’s side despite the expanse of sofa available.

  
  
“It’s about taste palettes! Not stomach room. I am full on savoury and salt right now, i’m not full on sweet and chocolate.” He offers some out to Dan who immediately shakes his head, pushes it back into Phil’s own mouth - he looks rather happy to be fed by someone who isn’t himself.

  
  
“Alright, you baby bird, want me to start chewing it up for you next?”

  
  
“Shutup. You started it.” He chews and swallows before he speaks again, ever the picture of perfect manners. “Speaking of starting, you started that essay again?”

  
  
“Er, well.” Dan shakes his head, takes a cookie just so he has an excuse to not speak.

  
  
“Take that as a no?” It’s a question, but Phil is clearly already aware of the answer.

  
  
“No. I- just. I don’t know. I thought I’d really try this time, but it’s just like law all over again.” The only difference is that he at least attends some of his lectures, but that’s for a reason that has nothing to do with learning. “I was speaking to Greg earlier in the week and I actually think i’m going to go ahead with it.” 

-

_He’s been spending most of his time in the library since Phil went off and abandoned him._

_He’s staring at a book, the book is staring back. Neither of them are helping the other. He’s in the sort of mood where no matter how many times he reads the same paragraph it just doesn’t go in. Every word goes in one ear and straight out the other - or in one eye? Dan doesn’t known the saying when you’re reading as opposed to listening. Maybe he should google that instead of doing this._

_He’s about to put the book back, let someone else have it - someone who will actually let the book serve it’s purpose. He stretches, groan leaving him without his permission. Sat screwed up in the worlds smallest chair all day wasn’t doing his back any favours, he was going to be a few inches shorter by the time he was done with this degree._

_  
  
“Stare any harder and the book might just set on fire.” Despite how loud Greg is he has an odd way of sneaking up on you, the sort of sneaking that makes you clutch at your chest._

_  
  
“Fucking hell, please start announcing yourself.” Dan’s heart takes a few seconds to calm down, beating hard and fast enough he’s surprised Greg can’t actually hear it._

_  
  
“Then I wouldn’t get this reaction, that’s no fun.” He takes the chair next to Dan, tips his bag upside down in way of getting out his pens and notebook. His packed lunch falls out, too, he goes for that first._

_“Whatever.You just want to kill me.”_

_  
  
“Kill you how you want to kill that book?” He’s making his way through a sandwich that looks bigger than the average human head, half of the filling looks close to slopping out all over the floor._

_  
  
“I just don’t care, actually. I think? I didn’t realise quite how much of this would involve talking about other people, you know?”He finally closes it, decides to officially give up for the day._

_  
  
“You know i’ve read your work, the first one in particular was incredible. My husband sat me down and practically made me read it. I cried, he cried. It was very moving. I didn’t realise who you actually were until about a week ago, my husband said I have to arrange a meeting or he’ll ban me from wearing jeans in the office.” Some sauce falls out, lands on his leg with a surprisingly wet sound. “Well, I guess I won’t be wearing this particular pair anywhere.”_

_  
  
“Oh.” That’s two people now, two professionals who have specifically mentioned his first. No one ever speaks about the other three, Dan’s beginning to think he knows why. “If I had sent my other three through to you, would you have published them?”_

_“Honestly? No. First one, definitely.” He’s moping up his leg, trying to scrub out a bright red stain with a singular piece of tissue. “I feel as though your others were very generic, very sellable but nothing like the first. It’s as though you lost your voice. They’re well written, of course, but there’s nothing there that captured me.”_

_  
  
“Very honest.” Dan laughs, taking pity and giving Greg a hand wipe from his bag - the moisture might help a bit. “I didn’t originally write them like that, to be honest. They all went through very big edits, took away anything they considered too much for the average reader. I don’t know, I thought they must know best because they do this for a living.”_

_  
  
“Ah. You found one of the only cares about money ones. I bet if I read any books by any of their authors they’d all sound vaguely similar.” He’s got at least the top layer off, now it’s just an odd splotch that looks like it could be anything. “Do you have an idea for a next book, Dan?”_

_  
  
“Er, yeah, actually. I do. A quite recent idea.”_

_  
  
“Anything to do with a certain Phil Lester?” He asks, waggling his eyebrows in a way that suits the face of a child._

_  
  
“Shutup.” He huffs, but he smiles because he can’t help it. Phil makes him smile, anyone speaking about Phil makes him smile. “Something like that.”_

_“Come write for me, I’ll take it for what it is. I’m not interested in profit, i’m interested in real stories. I want you to make laugh, cry, want to launch the book across the room.”_

_  
  
“Oh.” Dan squeaks, he hadn’t been expecting it at all. A chance to actually write what he wanted, to get his stories out how they were intended - without the toning down of anything with actual feeling. “Really?”_

_  
  
“Yeah. My husband agrees. If you give us anything like the first we’ll be very happy.”_

_-_

“Wow. What an offer.”  


“Right? Seems like everyone agrees with you, my other three books are shit.” Dan snorts, and he has to agree. He’d hardly recognised them by the end, he’d written them all but his voice had been stripped away.

“They’re not shit, Dan, they’re just nothing like the first.” Phil pats his thigh, gives it a squeeze, then keeps his hand there. 

  
  
“I think i’m going to do it, but I also think i’m going to drop out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, hope you enjoyed and thankyou so much for your comments<3
> 
> (also i had some bad news this week so forgive me if there are a lot of mistakes in this! i tried to read it over but my brain was like no luv x)


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh look at that 2 chapters in basically a day

“Oh.”

  
  
“Oh? Is that all you’re adding? Not a - _Dan, your 2:2 streak is amazing and you should stay?_ ” In Phil’s defence he looks a little shell-shocked, Dan clicks in his fingers and it seems to bring Phil back into the room.  


  
“Sorry. Just wasn’t expecting that, I mean, I always thought you’d be better suited to something like creative writing.” Phil’s shoulders are hunched up around his ears, like he's a ball of nervous energy and the only thing that lowers them is Dan forcing them down.

  
  
“You’ll get terrible posture if you keep doing that.”

  
  
“I have already have terrible posture.” Phil murmurs, barely audible - if it were anyone but Dan, not audible at all. “Wow. Big things happened this week, then. Why didn’t you tell me?”Dan can’t work out if he sounds hurt, or just completely caught of guard. Mixture of both - maybe.

  
  
“Honestly i’ve just been mulling it over all week, I knew it was a decision I had to make myself so I thought it best not to tell anyone until I was like absolutely certain.” Any sooner and Phil would’ve been able to sway him, if Phil had told him he should stay he just might have.

  
  
“Right.” Phil puffs out his cheeks.

  
  
“You going for longer than that twenty seconds? I’ll start a timer.” Dan laughs, pokes his fingers into either side of Phil’s face and he has no choice but to let out a breath.

  
  
“Hey! That could’ve been a world record.” Phil whines, and then he finally meets Dan’s gaze. “So. This is it, then? You’ll be back off down to London. I don’t know why, the rain here is a big draw.”

  
  
“The rain isn’t, something else is, though.” Dan smiles, all soft and adoring and Phil looks away.

  
  
The smile drops, Dan’s entire heart drops. Had he really had it wrong this entire time? Now there’s nothing stopping them, there’s no question of morals, there’s no reporting a relationship to HR. It’s just the two of them and Phil still won’t meet him halfway.

  
  
“Have you actually dropped out, though? Handed in the form?” Phil’s chewing on his thumb nail, biting it down until it’s more skin than anything else. Dan’s known him to be jittery, but this is a new habit he’s never noticed before, never seen.

  
  
“Well, no. I only decided this morning, and it’s Sunday. I’ve like filled out the form, I need to print it and hand it in tomorrow. I’m guessing it’ll be done by Friday? I mean, that’s how long it took last time but that was years ago. It could be quicker now, could be done by tomorrow night, I could be a two time drop out by tomorrow and-“ He’s rambling, trying to cover up the fact he wants to ask Phil a million questions, ask why he’s still not looking him in the eye.

  
  
“It’ll be a few days - Wednesday probably.” Phil’s voice is flat, and it’s such an odd noise that it makes Dan flinch. Phil’s someone he associates with energy, with a certain amount of brightness that never seems to fade. Now he seems dark, sat there on his sofa with this heaviness about him.

  
  
“Right. Then i’ll be a twice drop out by Wednesday.”

  
  
This isn’t how Dan had expected it to go, _wanted_ it to go. He was thinking confessions, he was thinking a sighed relief of “ _finally_.”

  
  
Phil was standing up, getting his coat, putting it on quicker than he ever had before.

  
  
“You’re going?”

  
  
“Yeah, stuff to do for tomorrow.”

  
  
“Phil, fuck just-“

  
  
“Dan.” He holds up a hand, it effectively shuts Dan up. “Goodbye.”

-

“Just like that?” Chris asks, she’s been rubbing up and down his arms for five minutes now in something he thinks is supposed to show sympathy.

  
  
“Yeah. He just left. He didn’t seem to have like any opinions. Asked if I was going back to London, asked if i’d already officially dropped out.” He stops her once it feels like they’re just on the verge of an electric shock, gently pushes her hands back into her own lap.

  
  
“Dan, did you ever think why those questions in particular?” Greg has beenuncharacteristically quiet through Dan’s retelling, just sat chewing a pen whilst Chris made noises of encouragement.

  
  
“What’d you mean?” Dan slumps over onto the table, chin resting on his forearm. He doesn’t even have the energy to hold his own head up today, had stayed up all night thinking about how Phil really doesn’t feel the same.

  
  
“You’re smart, but sometimes I think you’re actually one half of a whole idiot. The other being Phil.” He puts the pen back into his mouth, shakes his head and leaves Dan to think about it for two minutes.

  
  
“I still don’t get it.” He eventually replies.

  
  
“For god’s sake, Dan.” The pen goes back into his bag this time, a sign he’s ready to give all the answers that Dan’s too stupid to work out on his own. “You said he sounded potentially hurt when you told him, right? Ever thought about how that hurt isn’t the fact you waited all week to tell him, but over the fact he thinks you’re going back to London? Just leaving before admitting anything.”  


  
“No. He didn’t- no. He could’ve admitted something.” Dan gets a light slap around the back of his head from Chris for that.

  
  
“Daniel, you can both admit to things. You’re waiting for him, maybe he’s waiting for you. You’re the one who announced you’re leaving, not him.” Greg gives her a big thumbs up, give Dan a look of pure disdain.  


  
“Oi! Stop speaking in secret code you two.” He needs to know what else they think, needs to be able to sleep tonight without thinking about how Phil has never been interested.  


  
“And did you ever think he wanted specific drop out dates because he still might not feel one hundred percent comfortable whilst you’re a student? Ages aside, he still might hate the idea he has any sort of power over you. He’s a good person, Dan, you know that.” Gregs softened now, something to do with Dan’s slightly moist eyes.

  
  
“Maybe.” He sniffs, “I don’t know. I just built it all up in my head that this was it. That it was the big moment.”

“Don’t do that, you know it’ll only make you disappointed.” Chris pulls him close anyway, forces him to slouch over his chair in the most awkward way possible just so she can stroke his curls and tell him everything is going to be ok if he stops being so dramatic. “You know you can go to him once it’s complete, you can admit to everything and if he doesn’t feel the same then at least you can go on with your life knowing you tried. You know you’ll think about it every day for the rest of your life if you leave without saying anything.”

“I spent ten years wishing i’d have said something to my now husband.” Greg sounds wistful, as though he’s thinking about all the extra time they could’ve shared. “I let my own brain completely over take my heart, it was miserable and I thought about how every day I could’ve just said _something_. I bumped into him one day by chance, and I thought why not now? We got married two years later. You know you have to say something, don't you?”

  
  
“I’m glad i’m leaving, won’t have to listen to you two being right all the time.”

  
  
“We love you, too.” They both say in unison, and Dan knows he’s got friends for life in them. "Also you're not leaving, so that's an empty threat."

  
  
"Let me have my moment."

  
  
He's already accepted Greg's offer of writing a new book, know he'll be ganged up on for a long time to come. 

  
  
His own publishers had an office here as well as in London, he'd already visited and signed something stating he wasn't allowed to write any sequels to his current books for anyone else. Done that last week when Greg had first offered - signed a contract that set him free from the constraints he'd let himself be under for years, now he had the chance to really write.  
  


-

He hands the form in at lunch time, they ask him if he’s sure and nothing else.

  
  
It’s accepted by the Wednesday just as Phil had told him, he gets an email filled with false sadness about his decision and the promise he’ll get an official letter in the post.

  
  
He hasn’t seen Phil since Monday, they’d texted but it was brief and nowhere near the level of before.

  
  
He can’t work it out, work out if Phil is busy, mad, upset - angry? He’s not being cruel, he still replies every time Dan texts, but on the Tuesday it rains and he’s not there offering to take Dan home.

Guess who's an official drop out? This guy

_do you want to come to something with me on Friday? One last snotty party._

_  
  
_One last chance for a free bar? You betcha.

-

“We look like children.” Dan laughs, clutching his coat to his chest. “Like we’re waiting for our mums to come pick us up from a birthday party.”

  
  
They’re both stood on the pavement outside, neither of them making an attempt to walk away, to leave the other. The event had been as snotty as promised, in a too fancy restaurant that Dan would never be able to afford in the real world. It’s just down the road from Phil’s house, somewhere Dan still hasn’t even seen. It seems odd considering just how much time Phil had spent at Dan’s apartment, buried in his blankets and eating his cereal.

  
  
“We do this a lot, don’t we? Dither.” Phil sniffs, nose wrinkling at the cold. His cheeks are red, the wind whipping through his hair and he still doesn’t move, doesn’t even look like he’s thinking about it. “Outside buildings, at the bottom of lecture halls, in my office, your flat. Have the longest goodbyes, because we both know that once it’s said then that’s it until the next time.”

  
  
It’s raining now - they both stare at each other.

  
  
“I suppose we do, yeah.” They once had a half an hour long conversation despite the fact they both needed to be elsewhere, he remembers the way they both kept glancing at the clock above Phil’s desk, seeing how far they could push it.

“Can’t we just-“ Dan starts.

  
  
“Fuck it.” Phil seems to make a decision, one that Dan has been desperate for him to make for months. He’s being grabbed by the hand, dragged down a rainy street and up too many stairs for his wildly beating heart to handle.

He’s in a house that isn’t his, but somehow still immediately feels like home.

-

Their first kiss is a _mess._ Phil accidentally pushes him straight into a door-handle, Dan refusing to move away bites down on Phil’s lip at the pain. There’s the taste of metal, then his tongue swiping it away.

  
  
It’s perfect, best kiss Dan’s ever had.

  
  
“ _You_.” Phil breathes out when they part, eyes wild and Dan can barely make out the blue anymore. “You. Do you have any idea, Dan? You drive me fucking insane. I thought- god. I hoped beyond hope you were a TA when you walked into my office that day.”

  
  
Dan’s weak at the knees, the door handle still jammed into his back and he surges forward for something just as desperate as the first. Phil’s hands are somehow everywhere, Dan can barely keep up with it. All the sensations are driving him haywire, and he finally just falls into Phil’s chest with a laugh so loud it makes even him jump.

  
  
“Me? Me? I fucking drive _you_ insane.” Dan pulls back, eyes darting all over Phil’s face to make sure this is real, that he hasn’t dreamed up something that feels alarmingly close to the real thing. “I haven’t stopped thinking about you, I’ve never- I don’t even know how to describe what you do to me, Phil. I thought the other day when you left that i’d read it all wrong, that it was just me, that I was the loser who’d fallen for you when you didn’t-“

  
  
“Dan, c’mere.” He’s being led down a hall and into a kitchen that’s so clearly Phil’s. “Sit. Do you want something to drink? We should - talk. We should talk.” He looks like he wants to suggest anything but, like he wanted to drag Dan up the stairs instead.

“Ok.” Dan agrees, because there’s probably a lot to talk about. Communication is important, Phil is important, and Dan needs to know they’re the same page. 

“Drink?”

  
  
“Oh, yeah, sure. Anything.”

  
  
Phil makes two comedically large glasses of ribena, “are those vases?”

  
  
“No.”

  
  
“Right.” Dan giggles, can’t help it, it all feels so fucking surreal. “Just made for giants.”

  
  
“Exactly.” Phil smiles, and it’s bright again, the light that had been lacking on Sunday back so bright Dan swears it could blind him if he looks for too long.

  
  
“I like you.” He starts, hearing Greg’s words echo in his mind. “A lot. In a I want to be with you way, not in a one night stand way.”

  
  
“Same. God. I feel like a teenager.” Phil laughs, taking a sip from - it’s definitely a fucking vase. “I spoke to my mum about all this, you know? She told me I was being a bit of an idiot for over-thinking it too much. I googled if it’d be - like - ok.”

  
  
“Oh my god, the pdf?”

  
  
“Yes. the pdf.”

  
  
That sets them off for some reason, hysterical at Phil’s kitchen table. It takes them two minutes to calm down, and then another two when they look at each other and it starts all over again.

  
  
“I remember feeling so bad, even though you’re a full grown adult and you can make your own decisions.” He’s wiping away happy tears with the sleeve of his shirt, then holding out his hand which Dan immediately takes ahold of.

  
  
“That’s good, though, you’re such a good person. I know the whole thing is like not for us? I don’t think. Just for absolute pricks who think it’s fine to go for - well, you know. It’s shit they had to make that, shit that there’speople who actually do that.”He can’t stop stroking over Phil’s hand with his thumb, obsessed with touching now that he knows he can.

  
  
“Yeah, that’s what my mum said, too. Then once I got over the age thing, then I started thinking about the power imbalance - it was a whole thing. Then when you said you were dropping out I was relived, actually so fucking relieved, but then I felt bad about feeling that? Like is it wrong? I felt happy you were leaving because then I thought about how we could actually - be.” He turns his hand over and links their fingers together, they fit like they were made for each other. Like they’d always been destined to hold hands, to hold each other.

“It’s not, Phil. You never treated me any different in regards to uni, don’t make me bring up that 2:2 again.” Dan smiles, and he feels absolutely giddy. He just wants to scream at the top of his lungs, tell everyone that he’s met his soulmate.

  
  
“I know, I know. I just never wanted you to feel like I was in anyway taking advantage, and sometimes I thought I could _see_ how much you wanted what I did. But I always told myself no, that you didn’t, that it’d be unfair and i’d be - I just never wanted you to feel like that.” And it makes sense to Dan now, why he hadn’t even tried for anything on the Monday, he’d still wanted to make sure Dan was comfortable.

  
  
“You never made me feel anything but - happy. God, Phil, you make me feel so happy.” That day Phil had come over when he’d been feeling his worst, when he’d felt pushed down so deep he was sure his lungs were going to give up, he’d still felt a spark of happiness from being with Phil. Not that he felt Phil could solve all of his problems, stop the depression - it just gave him a life jacket.

  
  
“We’re on the same page, then? As in I want to wake up with you for many, many mornings. And argue with you over the fact these aren’t vases. And I want to make you finish the Buffy rewatch, and I finally want to win more than twice against you in Mario Kart. And I want to take you home the next time I go.”

  
  
“Yeah- yeah. Phil. I want all of that, and I don’t want to go back to London I want to stay here, and I want to go and work with Greg and his husband. His office is nearby so it’d be perfect. I can stay here and we can- we can just _be_.” He’s pulling Phil forwards until they meet in the middle, the vase falls and the ribena goes everywhere but they ignore it in favour of kissing until their lips feel numb.

  
  
He always ends up in awkward positions. Pulled over chairs, stretched out hips, over tables and it doesn’t matter because Phil is pulling away and asking. “So, no one night stands but -“

  
  
“Phil, just take me upstairs.”

  
  
\- 

Dan watches Phil as he sleeps, the early morning sun streaming in through the small gap in the curtains making him look paler than ever.

  
  
He’s so beautiful and now Dan can appreciate that fact every day.

“I can feel you staring at me, don’t be weird. I have morning breath.” Phil’s eyes are still shut, but he’s smiling now. Dan leans in to kiss him despite the warning, just a small soft thing that confirms everything - they’ve finally made it.

“I’m not staring at you, i’m admiring you. There’s a very big difference.” He doesn't see it coming, too busy taking in the moles and freckles littering Phil’s shoulders. Suddenly he’s pinned down, being tickled to within an inch of his life. “No, no! Stop it, fuck, I surrender. I’ll never stare again!”

  
  
“Promise?” Phil asks, swooping in for a another kiss before Dan has a chance to answer.

  
  
“Promise.”

“Mhm, good. Has very murder-y vibes.” He rolls off Dan, then immediately tangles their limbs together.

  
  
“I feel like I have the right to appreciate my boyfriend without being accused of murder, actually.”

“Boyfriend?”

“Fuck - sorry. I didn’t think, I mean-“

  
  
“I guess you can appreciate your boyfriend if I can appreciate my boyfriend. My partner. Yee-haw.”

  
  
“That was almost sweet, almost.” Dan’s melting anyway, sinking back down into Phil’s mattress with the word boyfriend playing on repeat.“So, that’s what we are? Yee-haw partners?”

  
  
“Yeah, I think that sounds perfect. Just please never make me try and ride a horse.”  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELLLLLL. the end. I know there are many slow burns longer than this, but this is the first thing iv'e written in forever and it is slow burn for me LOL. also sorry about the fade 2 black if you were expecting smut i did think about it but i can never like write it in the way I want?it always sounds clunky! also I know there are slow burns out there that are like 100000k but as someone who wants to write them being in luv in 3000 words... 30000 is slow burn forME :P
> 
> Also i had decided from the beginning it'd never actually be a student teacher relationship, i just wanted to do it in a different way than the usual big age gaps that are like.. uncomfy to me now i'm older and not reading them as like a 15 year old.
> 
> Please let me know if you liked my choices now that it's over looooool. ( I tried 2 wait to upload but i am impatient and had it written so y not) this has been a small fun dive back into writing and I hope to write some more things in the future. To all my frequent readers who commented and kudos thankyou so much, i really wouldn't have gotten this finished without you! and 2 anyone who dislikes reading wips and was waiting for this to be over then welcome and I hope you enjoyed too!like dan's first book this is rough around the edges but i had a joy writing it :) but truly sorry 4 any mistakes and accidental tense changes ha! ( i have an idea for an epilogue so maybe look out for that in the future!!!!!)


	11. Epilogue

_Two years later_

“Fuck.”  


Dan pops up from beneath their quilt, drops a kiss onto Phil’s chin with a smirk so smug it’s almost embarrassing. “After two years I’d have thought you’d be able to cope for a little longer than five minutes.”Dan teases, and he does it because Phil always spits something out that he intends to be insulting but is a definite compliment.

  
  
“Shutup, it’s not my fault your stupid tongue can do that stupid thing. I think five minutes is a long time, actually.” He’s flushed all the way down his chest, Dan perches himself on Phil’s lap and runs his fingers along the redness. He’s always been a little bit obsessed with how easily he can ruin Phil, turn him into a pile of half sentences and broken noises.

  
  
“Yeah. Ok. Blame me, Phil.”

  
  
“I will. What’d want? Feel like I should return the favour.”

  
  
“Roll over.” 

“Move then, you great lump.” Phil flicks his left nipple, just because he can.

  
  
“Was that supposed to encourage me to move? I liked it, do it again.” Dan grins, and Phil does no such thing. He instead gently pushes him to the side, Dan goes with it and curls up on the left side of the mattress. Phil’s surprisingly graceful as he moves, throwing Dan a look over his shoulder as he rolls onto his front.

  
  
“What do you want?”

  
  
“Spread your legs.”  
  
-

“That was new.” Phil’s looking down, but Dan can hear the grin even if he can’t see it. He’s sat up again now - but he's still got his legs spread in a way that’s driving Dan a little bit insane - wiping the lube from the inside of his thighs. Dan had offered to do it for him, but Phil had graciously rejected and let Dan bask in his post-orgasm glow.

  
  
“I’ve like been full on enamoured with your thighs since the first time I saw them in a suit, was bound to fuck ‘em one day.”  


“You can put the sheets in the wash before you go, you’ve come all over them. I have manners andcame in your mouth.” Dan jabs in him in the side, it turns into a full on tickle fight with flailing limbs and a badly placed elbow.

  
  
“Ow! Ow. Ok, you win. I don’t have any manners, I lied.” Phil pouts.

  
“Love you.”

“Love you too, thigh fucker.”

-

It’s been two years and Dan still feels as much as he did at the start.

  
  
He walked into Phil’s house one day and he basically hasn’t left since. His own apartment sat devoid of any human life, then over time of any belongings. He didn’t sign a new contract,didn’t get his security deposit back because apparently the newaddition of a boot-print to the door _was_ a problem.

It’s been two years and Dan has a book, a new shiny book full of emotions he’d been previously banned from. It’s his book launch tonight, Greg and his husband arranged it all. Something fancier than he deserves, but not too fancy that he’d feel out of place. They knew him pretty well by now, the seamlessness of their working relationship something he never thought he’d experience.

  
  
They give him space, time, understanding. The edits come in the form of deleting Dan’s 7000th comma, correcting typos and telling him if he’s gotten a little too ahead of himself and left out something important. They rarely ever take, only ever seem to want him to add - to write more of what had once been taboo.

  
  
It’s done now, though. A 451 piece thing that he’d poured his absolute all in to. It was about him and Phil, names changed, situation a little bit different. But all the longing, pining, yearning was still there. He’d not realised quite how much he’d wanted at the time, not until he was writing it up and more and more pages were becoming filled with the evidence of his desperation.

  
  
Chris had laughed when Dan told her, had simply said “Daniel, much like the Great Wall of China, your longing could’ve been seen from space.”

  
  
She’d given him permission to include that line in his book.

It was a romance at heart, but now with the parts of Dan’s life that were previously redacted.

Greg cries after his first read of the chapter solely dedicated to his depression, the metaphor of being beneath the water. He doesn’t touch it at all, doesn’t remove one comma, doesn’t add or take away a single word. He leaves it exactly as is, tells Dan he’s proud of him.  


Dan gets all awkward and says “thanks, Dad.”

  
  
Greg and his husband decide to unofficially adopt him from that moment on. 

-

“Two years and you still take my breath away whenever you walk into a room, too damn pretty for your own good, Howell.” Phil is still spread out on the bed, and if Dan didn’t have somewhere important to be he’d be all over him.  


“Fuck off, sap.” His tell-tale rosy patch is betraying him, though, as is the softness in his delivery.

  
  
“Really, though.” Phil goes on undeterred, stands up so he can cross the room and straighten Dan’s tie. “You’re so beautiful, sometimes I think i’ve dreamt you up. Then you’ll roll into me at night and you’re as warm as all the radiators in our flat combined and I know you’re real. You’re real and you chose me.”

  
  
“Don’t make me cry before I go, please. I’ll never recover.” He lets out a small little whine of a thing, wishes Phil could come but he’d been expressly banned by Greg. Dan _knew_ why, they weren’t big on public displays and the first page of his book was very much that.

  
  
“I’m proud of you, you know.” And he leans in to kiss Dan like he has a million times before, it’s so achingly familiar but it still sets fireworks off in Dan’s heart.

  
  
“Mhm, don’t kiss me like that whilst you’re naked either.” He strokes his hand over Phil’s hip, soft little circles purely done just because Dan wants to touch, wants to touch and never stop.

“Why? Scared you’ll lose control and ravish me in your pretty suit?” He shimmies his hips and it makes Dan laugh so big, so fond, so sure that he’s done the right the thing - two years ago, now.

  
  
“Alright, Shakira.”

“Yes, thank you for finally discovering the real me.” He sighs, like he’d been waiting the longest time.

  
  
“Go have a shower, you stink.” Dan doesn’t let go though, just pulls Phil in closer and wraps his arms around his shoulders. “Love you, so much, sorry you couldn’t come tonight. It’s just like a press thing and everyone else is banned. You can come to the slightly less official one, and you can hold my hand and steal all the food.”

  
  
That wasn’t strictly true & Phil could’ve come.

  
  
“You stink.” Phil retorts, biting down on Dan’s shoulder because he’s a bit of a freak like that. Dan tells him often he’s convinced he’s actually a vampire and is just waiting for the right moment to turn Dan. “Love you, too.”

  
  
He finally, finally let’s go. Wonders how different everything will be after the event, once he’s home and Phil _knows_. Will he still look at him like he hung all the stars in the sky, will he still want Dan and the future they so often spoke about?

  
  
“Ugh. I gotta go, i’m going to be late.” He presses a kiss to Phil’s sad looking quiff, then his forehead, all the way down and everywhere but his mouth.

“That was cruel and unusual punishment.” Phil steals a proper kiss anyway, one that makes Dan go weak at the knees.

  
  
“I’ve left you a copy of the book on the kitchen side, the official proper copy. Read it whilst i’m gone? Or at least read the first page.” Dan’s nervous about it, more nervous than he is about everyone else in the world seeing all 451 pages.

  
  
“I’ve read it a million times, you know I have.” And he has, read all the rough copies and the things that hadn’t worked out and Dan decided to scrap. He’s been the most supportive throughout the entire thing, made Dan copious amounts of coffee as he bashed away at his keyboard.

  
  
“Yeah, but you haven’t seen the official, official proper copy. There’s a new addition.” He steps back, gives _this_ Phil a final look because maybe he’ll look different when Dan gets back - with the new addition.

  
  
“Ok, ok. I’ll read your shiny official copy.”

  
  
“Good.”

  
  
“Go. Bring me back some cake.”

-  


_For 29 Years_ lays on their kitchen table, just waiting to be opened by the one who had started it all.  


On the first page of Dan’s fifth book is something more important than every other word he’s even written. A dedication to the most important person in his life, his soulmate, his - fuck. His Phil.

  
  
_Phil,_

_How do you feel about Yee-haw Husbands?_

_Yours always, Dan._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ if u would like to reblog on tumblr as..support?lol idk tumblr is a hard website and i am baby. ty so much if you do! <3 ](https://fictropes.tumblr.com/post/626899230438621184/now-complete-but-with-additional-epilogue-i)
> 
> And that's the official end! it was always going to be 11 cos you know i hate ever numbers. and ofc.. Phil feels very good about it. I hope you all enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed writing it! I was kinda going to aim for a longer epilogue but then this short and sweet thing just felt.... right. thanku for all your comments and encouragement! see you at my next fic (hopefully!<3)
> 
> also very upset that u actually can't see the great wallf rom space :(


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